Smart cities project financially unsustainable: Expert

November 18, 2017 09:02 pm | Updated November 19, 2017 12:08 am IST - MYSURU:

Picture shows Ravikanth Joshi speaking at the Mysuru U.N. SDGs conference.

Picture shows Ravikanth Joshi speaking at the Mysuru U.N. SDGs conference.

MYSURU: “A rupee saved is a rupee generated.” That is how Ravikanth Joshi, a public finance expert with two decades of experience managing budgets for the Baroda Municipal Corporation previously, sums up the lessons he learnt on the job.

Referring to some of the development proposals submitted by cities as part of the Centre’s flagship Smart Cities project, Mr. Joshi told The Hindu that the extravagant costs of the proposals, amounting to ₹9 lakh to ₹12 lakh per capita in cities such as Chandigarh, were financially unsustainable. He was speaking on the sidelines of the international conference on the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at St. Philomena’s College here. Goal 11 of the SDGs pertains to sustainable cities.

“The Area Development Component takes up 75% of the money intended for the project. This will be used to develop only specific areas of the city, with amenities like 24x7 water supply, nicely-paved roads, well-laid pavements, etc. Based on an analysis of 60 cities’ proposals under the project, I found hardly 4% of the physical area of the city would be developed this way. That way, retrofitting the infrastructure for entire cities would remain a dream for over 20 years,” he said.

Under the project, Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) are registered under the Companies Act with the state and the Centre investing equally. Private capital could be injected into the project comprising up to 48% as equity, he explained. However, in the process urban local bodies got sidelined. The constitution of board members to the SPVs fell short of local representatives; only the city commissioner was represented, he said.

“Neither the local communities nor the local officials are involved in framing project proposals, and the decision-making is dominated by top bureaucrats,” he said, adding that this could be corrected. “In Maharashtra, the state ordinance for constituting SPV under Smart Cities project appointed 15 board members, with six local officers and representatives from both the ruling party and the opposition party. This was achieved after local politicians raised their voices.”

Addressing the current paradox in cities where on one side there is a proliferation of energy-guzzling glass exterior buildings and malls, and green buildings on the other side, he said that one welcoming aspect of the Smart Cities project was its emphasis on sustainability by ensuring 10% of electricity needs of cities to be met by non-conventional sources of energy.

At the concluding session of the conference on Saturday, Lawrence Surendra, chairman of The Sustainability Platform, one of the organisers, spoke about the need to use the ongoing crisis in higher education in India as an opportunity to develop knowledge partnerships on matters such implementing SDGs to reinvigorate the university as spaces of learning and intellectual advancement.

Dr. K. Ganapathy, a neurosurgeon with decades of experience with Apollo Hospitals, Chennai, spoke about bridging the urban-rural gap in healthcare access with the use of technology, such as telemedicine.

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