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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All cities should be pollution free. use of e cars is the only solution. In the budget 2016-17 the duties and taxes may be exempted to these e- cars (electric cars) so that the price should range from 1-2 lakh. Surely every body will purchase. Govt. can even give IT exemption and in instalment basis. make strict rules that inside cities only e-cars/buses are allowed so that we can live in a pollution free healthy life. Also we can ban smoking like some countries when we know it causes cancer.
Smart cities should be free from beggars, rag pickers and others.
Please note: The above mentioned are not financially strong but they are still human beings and are part of our country and we could take up some measures in their favor which would help them lead a normal life.
Please share your thoughts and views in this regard.
Smart city mission should comprise of parameters such as overhead public transport, schools, colleges, job opportunities, hospitals, recreation centers, broader roads, lower crime rate e.t.c.
Most city plans in India do not pay attention to local and regional ecology. Land forms and contours provide natural watershed and flood flow systems. They also provide low lands and higher lands in a natural formation. If these respected by the plans then wetlands can be used ofr water conservation, drainage systems, usable playfields and parks by school children and senior citizens, respectively and environmental buffers and the requisite greenery. Will Smart Cities insist on these?
I request you to give subsidy( or any alternative) for water level indicator/ controller to reduce water and electricity usage and saving of it. I know it is not possible to give subsidy for it. The tariff for Water bill may be done as per MSEDCL bill ( tariff differs as per no. of units) This will also help to reduce water usage.
But, kindly look into this matter to make awareness of use of at l
Waste Management: No Govt ever asks the CITIZENS to perform their duties towards their cities as they r scared that people may mind.
No municipal body of big city can effectively manage waste until people help in: 1. Waste segregation at home 2. Reducing the waste and use of plastic.
Our early politicians made people handicapped by not giving quality education, so that people r dependent on them.
It is a great thought to create Smart Cities. I would add clean green environment with lots of trees,lots of safe playgrounds and walking trails to promote physical activity among our young generation is very important. Congested cities and lots of screen time (TV, Computers, iphones, ipads etc.) among young kids has taken away their after school and weekend physical activities. India is leading the world in Diabetes and this is a preventable disease with active physical activity. Thank you.
Why can not select north India? Because not interested this plan in there people
Add to: Prime Minister Sir
Sir,
This is a part of the letter that I emailed via your website few days back. It was registered as a grievance PMOPG/E/2016/0038088
2.Solar and Wind Energy
We need to promote generation of solar energy using sea surfaces. This shall involve development of floating solar cells which can be left to float in the ocean near the coastlines.
Wind energy team shall work around development and installation of wind turbines on top of high rise residential towers.
JUST PUT METRO COACHES on ALL LOCAL RAILWAYS ACROSS INDIA or develop / upgrade the GROUND BASED Local Railway Infrastructure on the LINES OF METRO RAIL in all FUTURE, NEW & OLD cities instead of EXPENSIVE ELEVATED METRO RAILS across India which is nothing but WRONG URBAN PLANNING, SHORTSIGHTEDNESS & WASTEFUL EXPENDITURE.