If the number of responses in the Ministry of Urban Development’s Smart Cities webpage is an indicator of public participation then Coimbatore is found wanting.
The webpage, on which the public can register their suggestions, records 55 persons expressing opinion for Coimbatore. For Tiruchi, the number of responses stands at 616 and for Dindigul it is 173. For Madurai and Erode it is 34 and 27 respectively.
Sources in the Corporation say that the way the things are progressing, it appears as though the civic body and consultant are holding meetings and interacting with public to tick the check boxes given by the Ministry. Or, they are doing things in a perfunctory manner.
The Corporation and consultant could have engaged FM radio stations to reach a larger number, conducted flash mob programmes, kept suggestion boxes at more places and drawn public attention in a number of ways, including running mobile kiosks for the purpose.
Sources say that in Tiruchi and a few other competing cities, the local bodies have sent out bulk messages to the public inviting them to participate in the process and point out that the local bodies are going out of their way to engage the citizens because it is of the criteria the Ministry has set to select cities for the first round of funding.
The Ministry has designed the Smart City initiative in such a way that cities have to compete to get funding. It will have to come up with innovative proposals and its selection will be based on a number of parameters.
Sources familiar with Coimbatore’s progress in Smart City say that the city was a tepid slow in kick-starting the campaign. But since then it has progressed fast and this can be seen in the number of offline (written) proposals the civic body has received: around 700.
In the coming days, the city will see the Corporation engage with the public in a more visible manner.
Coimbatore Corporation is supposed to submit its vision, goals and strategy document to the Ministry by October 20 and its Smart City plan by December 15.
The consultation it has conducted with various sections of the society is only for the first round and that the second round of consultations will begin soon and they will be better, the sources promise.
