Citizens Consultation for the Smart Cities Mission
On 25 June 2015, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi launched the Smart Cities Mission to enable the holistic development of Indian cities. This bold new initiative under the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) aims to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life of people by enabling local development and harnessing technology as a means to create smart outcomes for citizens. According to MoUD, the core elements of a Smart City include: adequate water and electricity supply, suitable sanitation and solid waste management, efficient public transportation, affordable housing, robust IT connectivity and digitalization, e-governance with citizen participation, sustainable environment, and safety and security of citizens with health and education for all. These objectives are proposed to be attained through a judicious mix of retrofitting, redevelopment and greenfield development.
Citizen consultation is an important pillar of the first phase of the Smart Cities Mission. The Ministry encouraged local governments to engage citizens as they worked on their city’s Smart City Proposal, and recommended MyGov as the core platform for citizen consultation. Municipal governments supplemented their online MyGov activities with meetings, discussions, and other public interactions in their respective cities.
MyGov facilitated citizen consultation for the Smart Cities Mission in two stages. During the first round, it offered cities a range of citizen consultation methodologies, such as discussion forums, tasks, online polls, public talks, and blogs. These tools served as a catalyst for citizens to participate in the Smart Cities Mission and the competition, also known as the India Smart Cities Challenge, and offer suggestions for the development of their city.
During the second round of the Smart Cities Mission, municipal authorities from the shortlisted cities used MyGov to collect suggestions from citizens on their vision for a Smart City to incorporate these into draft proposals. Of the 98 cities, 57 put the draft proposals online for further comments and inputs from the public. Overall, the proposals received a total of 1,42,895 comments.
The 98 cities adopted a range of measures to encourage citizen engagement. Municipalities reached out to young citizens by visiting schools and colleges to educate them about the Mission. Municipal corporations used popular social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter to spread awareness about the mission. Still others created dedicated websites with detailed updates on progress. SMS campaigns, voice message campaigns, and airtime on radio channels helped expand a municipality’s reach. Many cities even created free Wi-Fi hotspots in crowded areas so that people could access Internet and submit suggestions. Advertisements in newspapers, pamphlets, hoardings, and the MyGov app played a significant role in making the Smart City Mission a nationwide phenomenon.
The Smart Cities Mission – MyGov collaboration is an unprecedented exercise in urban planning, which has transformed planning from a top-down centralized activity into a democratic consultative process, taking the citizens’ perspective as the foundation stone on which the city plan is built. MyGov looks forward to partnering with more cities and citizens in the subsequent rounds of the Smart Cities Mission play its part in developing Smart Cities across India.
– Gaurav Dwivedi,
CEO, MyGov
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As an indian citizen and working in Singapore,
I strongly welcome our PM’s initiative to
Change 100 cities into smart cities .
Are we looking something like Singapore
As a model? , if yes then the first thing we must do
is to clean up the corrupted admin authorities who are the real barriers for the improvement.
Please look out all the state infrastructure
Which the building quality is too worse.
Let’s have some strong controlling body to clean
Up the corruption first.
Hi Gaurav,
Greetings!
India is in need of solutions that is ingenious & unique as its every day problems. Having 25 yrs of experience in civil engineering, at this juncture with full knowledge in the traffic problems faced in India, have come-up with a solution to it that is world class.
I would like to discuss more about how we can get this implemented from small towns to large cities. Shall connect & discuss more once I receive a mail from your-end at venkateshgkulkarni@gmail.com. Jai Hind!
In a smart city the police, government and the civic agencies should be corruption free by introducing e-governance. We should be able to file an FIR online have an online account for paying fines to the traffic police or any other state agencies in order to prevent bribes and corruption. We should have smart cards and an account linked to it to add money in order to swipe and pay for public transports. We should be able to avail any public service online and be able to pay using aadhar and bank
A smart city must have good sanitation like underground sewer tunnels and not open drains on the footpaths. The electricity transformers, wires and telephone wires can also be made underground to increase safety from electrocution and keep them safe from environmental factors like wind or rains. It must be well connected with rapid transport systems. It must be spacious and have at least 6 lane roads keeping in mind housing for all.
3. The solid waste management can be most effectively handled by using plasma technology and per ton of organic waste it can generate approx. One megawatt of power.
Just at a cost of may be 50 paise per unit.
such plants with plasma technology are available with trailer mounted to fixed plants of 1 ton to 10000mt /day,of such waste of any type hazardous or non hazardous, without segregation.
4.similarly the public transport services information can also be available on the public information
1. All those so called it , instruments experts can build the information system based keos on he roads with centralised control room for traffic, parking places, hospitals, traffic congestion in some areas with led display or even like a score board.
2. Same it experts and instrumentation experts , the students can develop and design robotic underground pipe lines -water, sewage, gas, electrical cables – thru a mobile area wise or thru a cable net work in a centralised control room like DCS
following are the ways it can be done reasonably well. And there is always a room for improvement, addition and the update.infotech, wipro,reliance, adanis,tata s birlas and many such companies can help taking lead and adopting the cities .even the world bank can or asian development banks or thru the public bonds and the nationalised banks must keep aside some funds for such development plans only thru the corporations or district collector.
1. All those so called it , EXPERTS
Your visionary actions Country will be BENEFITED in the long years.
No need to make any statements or to feel dejected. Whether any aspirant city is not among the pick and choose list for smart city .
all the cities in the country can do it otherwise also.
following are the ways it can be done reasonably well. And there is always a room for improvement, addition and the update.infotech, wipro,reliance, adanis,tatas birlas and many such companies can help taking lead and adopting the cities
In Varanasi,up government make 4lane road on jaunpur gt road but they cutting down the trees which is besides the for increase width of road.
So, kindly request you please stop the cutting the tree for making the development of cities. Development of our cities without harming the nature.
Smart city must have seperate lanes for four wheelers and two wheelers and also a separate lane for bicycles on both side of the road so that people can commute to office and back home and within the city through bicycles. This would help in reducing pollution and to keep people healthy also. Smart cities must have overbridges at crossings and at highways at intervals so that people can cross the road safely and it would help in preventing lot of accidents.