Role of Governance & Good Governance in Smart
City Mission
INTRODUCTION
Smart City
A Smart City is a municipality that uses Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to increase operational
efficiency, transparency, accountability, share information with public and improve quality of services provided by
the government and improve citizen welfare.
There are various characteristics on which a city can be grouped as Smart City.
a. Basic public amenities
b. Smart transport management
c. Proper distribution of water and electricity in every part of a city
d. Heightened safety and security
e. Waste disposal management system
f. Efficient public parking facility
g. Rail and road connectivity to major cities
h. Digitisation of government departments
i. Establishment of One Stop Centre
Urban management form a precious space in growth and modernisation of a city. Along with this for protection of
interest of cities, urban management must prepare and implement policies and programs that will enhance public
culture, maintaining positive social and cultural values, moderation in people’s healthy life, community health,
creating and participating in solving the problems of housing, unemployment, crime, etc
Smart City Mission (SCM)
Smart City Mission was launched by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 25 th June, 2015. The main objective of
the mission is to promote cities that provide core infrastructure, clean and sustainable environment and give a decent
quality of life to their citizens through the application of ‘smart solutions’. The mission aims to drive economic
growth and improve quality of life through comprehensive work on social, economic, physical and institutional
pillars of the city.
The focus is on sustainable and inclusive development by creation of replicable models which act as lighthouses to
other aspiring cities. 100 cities have been selected to be developed as Smart Cities through a two-stage competition.
Smart City Mission is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme in which central government will give financial support of Rs.
48,000 crores over 5 years i.e. on an average Rs. 100 crores per city per year. An equal amount on a matching basis
is to be provided by State/ULB. Additional resources are to be raised through convergence, from ULB’s own fund,
grant under Finance Commission, innovative finance mechanism such as Municipal Bonds and from other
government programmes and borrowings. Emphasis has been given on the participation of private sector through
Public Private Partnership (PPP). Among its strategic components is “Area Based Development”, which includes
city improvement, city renewal, and city extension, plus a “Pan City Initiative” in which smart solutions are applied
covering larger parts of the city.
Smart city Mission will be operated through a Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC). ICCC will act as
the “nerve centre” for operations management in the city with day-to-day exception handling and disaster
management. ICCC provides smart solutions to the city’s municipal corporation and help manage safety and
surveillance of the city.
Good/Smart Governance
Good Governance is the process of measuring how public institutions conduct public affairs and manage public
resources and guarantee the human rights in a manner essentially free to abuse and corruption and rule of law.
Governance is a process of decision-making and the process by which these decisions are implemented, whereas
Good Governance ensures that maximum output is obtained from these decisions with effective means.
There are several principles which ensures the perspective of good governance :-
a. Rule of law
b. Efficiency and effectiveness
c. Openness and transparency
d. Ethical conduct
e. Innovation and openness to change
f. Sustainability and long-term reliability, etc
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Every policy or program, during its observation and implementation phase, passes through various acceptance and
challenges. These challenges need to be consider on every step of implementation. These challenges are privacy
concern, Smart City Security Issues, economic improvements, challenges with legislation, and many more
administrative concerns.
Every city selected for Smart City faces challenges on every step in form administration, political or economical.
The authority responsible for the management of the mission is itself not carrying out the work properly and all the
management work is proceeded through a third party individual, which is a private authority. As per the report
provided by these private individuals to the management, these reports are forwarded to the higher officials, and
without any check and balances these reports are published in public and the information in the report might be false
and misleading. The result is that the utilisation of the resources could not initiate in effective manner.
In most of cases financial problem is a major factor responsible for delaying of the project and this delaying degrade
resources in the due time which increases the cost and budget, which also impact the public fund. All these challenges
can be resolved through smart governance/good governance. Smart governance is a key factor responsible for
successful implementation of the strategies.
OBJECTIVE
Smart cities provide seamless and transparent services to the urban population and uses smart technology in various
sector such as health, education, law and order, transport and communication and all departments for providing
quick services to the people in efficient and effective manner. While city governance uses top-down approach, smart
city uses bottom-up approach, decentralisation approach and participatory governance to deliver services to the
citizen at the grassroots level. A smart city uses smart energy i.e. renewable energy to promote sustainable growth
and development in energy sector. Combining all these characteristics, a smart city need to have a smart urban local
bodies (ULBs) well trained and equipped with modern ICT, promote smart governance and law & order situation,
which will raise the quality of life of a resident.
RESEARCH QUESTION
Cities selected for Smart City Mission are not actually monitored by the authorities at ground level because of which
optimum use of resources cannot be utilised. The challenges mentioned above such as financing, centre-state
coordination, availability of master plan and facilities, etc. can be overcome from ground level monitoring of these
challenges. For all these duties Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) has been established which will communicate
between various sectors for the implementation of SCM.
Point to be noted is that whether these SPVs are working as per the instruction given to them for smart
implementation or whether they are hiding the real image of the mission in front of the authority. The resources
which are used in making a city as a smart city are utilised as per the norms or not. All these things need to be
monitored and proper inspection need to be done for getting maximum benefit out of it.
Digital Governance is also one of the crucial aspects in the field of smart governance, but many local
government/ULBs do not have a road map to digital governance yet. The roadmap of digital governance includes
the use of ICT and the availability of these measures on the local government website. Now the question is how and
what would be the criteria to implement digital governance in these ULBs and how would communication be
established. The issues regarding urbanization of cities through smart governance are discussed in almost all
international conferences such as United Nation General Assembly (UNGA), World Bank Conference, Conference
of Parties (COP), G-Countries, Rio Conference, Paris Agreement, etc. The report published by these international
organisations will be analyzed and conclusion would be extracted out of it. Keeping all these factors in mind, the
research paper will be limited to following broad objectives.
a. Various issues and challenges faced by smart cities during implementation, management, monitoring and
day-to-day progress of the mission.
b. ICT infrastructure and its challenges in SCM implementation.
c. Details of the deficiencies in technology and its improvement opportunities.
METHODOLOGY
This research paper is primarily based on the data gathered by multiple research as well as ground level surveys and
inspection of the cities on the following broad areas discussed above and the secondary data collected from the
literature review carried out from selected research paper and the case studies of different aspiring cities which are
selected or in process of selection as Smart City. The facts and figures collected from literature review and case
studies will be based on the following subjects.
a. Smart services and technologies delivered in smart cities
b. Smart waste management
c. Smart water management
d. Smart parking system and proper parking facilities
e. Smart traffic management
f. Smart healthcare system to eradicate arising pandemic
g. Smart policing for proper law and order
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Smart City Mission was launched on 25th June 2015 is a joint venture of Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and
all State/UTs Government. Time of completion of this mission was 2019-2020 but due to some unforeseen situation
the mission was extended. 100 cities and towns in different states and UTs of India have been selected under this
mission.
Out of total 7821 projects worth Rs. 181 lakh crore , 5343 projects worth Rs. 1 lakh crore have been successfully
completed. So far out of the total Rs. 48,000 crore for the mission, Rs. 36,561 crore has been released and out of
this 90% of the fund has been utilized by the cities. As per recommendation of panel chaired by MP Rajiv Ranjan,
a thorough evaluation and resolution of the factors causing significant project delays must occur below any further
extension of the deadline is granted.
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