Smart Cities Mission

Smart Cities Mission
 

News: Government has extended deadline for Smart Cities Mission by 1 year. Earlier, all 100 Smart Cities were supposed to be completed by June 2023.
 

What is Smart City Mission?
 It is a centrally sponsored scheme launched by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
 It refers to a city with smart physical, civic and economic infrastructure.
 Under the mission, 66 of the cities are small, with less than 1 million population and are implementing twothirds of the projects, as per a ministry source.
 Over 80% of the projects in the big cities have been completed, while the completion rate for smaller cities stands at 66%.
 

What exactly do Smart Cities comprise?
The Mission intends to build smart cities that cater to overall requirements of citizens. For example,
 Electricity – Smart meters, automated streetlights, smart electricity grids, solar rooftops etc
 Water and Sanitation – Rainwater harvesting, storm water drainage, penalties for littering and wasting water
 Walking lanes, public transport, public cycle sharing etc with limited to no waiting time
 Smart traffic signals to prevent traffic congestion
 Multimodal transport – BRTS, metro, waterways, underpasses
 Housing facilities (100% housing to all), healthcare facilities (from PHC to multidisciplinary hospitals), education facilities and economic facilities (banks, warehouses, export parks)
 All 100 cities have also constructed Integrated Command and Control Centres to monitor all security, emergency and civic services. During the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, these were converted into emergency response units by many of the cities.
 A component of sister cities project (2020) was also introduced in the mission. Those smart cities that are lagging behind in terms of implementation of goals are paired with cities that have performed well. For example, Ahmedabad was paired with Chandigarh. Best practices are shared.
Thus, smart cities intend to drive economic growth, improve the quality of life through smart solutions and focus on sustainable and inclusive development.
 

What is status of projects?
 The projects were supposed to be completed within five years, but in 2021 the Ministry changed the deadline for all cities to June 2023.
 As of March 2023, the 100 cities have issued work orders for 7,799 projects worth Rs 1.80 lakh crore.
 50 out of the 100 cities have completed 75% of the projects and would be able to complete the remaining works by June. However, they would need more time to carry out the documentation, dissemination and institutionalisation of the best practices and innovations.
 

Conclusion
 Improving the quality of life, economic opportunities is important in urban areas but problems such as migration, water, sanitation, traffic congestion, pollution impeded the growth of urban areas.
 Smart cities mission and AMRUT mission coupled with other government initiatives address these issues which will help build resilient urban infrastructure in the future.
Source – Indian Express