The ‘not-so-smart’ city

The concept of Smart City envisages infrastructure upliftment for a clean, functionally efficient environment yielding improved amenities for citizens. The approach is primarily based on application of smart solutions - an analogy for innovative methods, integrating latest techniques in sync with sustainable goals.

It involves optimal use of available resources while promoting Public Private Partnerships, to alleviate the Ease of Living in Urban areas. While the Global concept of Smart Cities revolves more around employment of Information and Communication Technology to transform living environment, there has been a greater focus on beautification, facelift and PPP. We are constantly inundated with updates about the works progress of Smart Cities, with media and publicity agencies demonstrating the momentum of such activities, often highlighting visuals of brightly painted streets, cycling tracks, bollards, murals and planters.

While this portrays a blooming picture, there is a flip side to the Ease of living in our cities. I would just highlight two issues here - traffic congestion and waterlogging.

Traffic management, which needs to be an integral part of smart city concept, is accorded a relatively low priority. Rather than easing traffic problems, the ongoing construction/ beautification projects have contributed to road diggings, which aggravate vehicular congestion.

Town planners require to focus on traffic control by adopting remedial measures like one-way traffic, closure of dividers, preventing U-turns, creation of traffic islands, traffic segregation and restriction of heavy vehicles during peak hours. While initiation of any development project, the implementation agencies need to focus on route management by charting alternate routes/ diversions on the affected roads.

Moreover, roadside improvements ought to be taken in a phase-wise/ staggered manner rather than big-bang approach of digging up multiple pathways simultaneously, thereby leaving ample room for alternate route planning. An additional mitigation would be to include traffic control as a part of every construction/development contract.

Speaking about waterlogging, although Monsoon is a perpetual feature, every season we get caught unprepared by oodles of inundated streets, with the magnitude increasing year on year. While some of us attribute it to excessive rainfall as a consequence of climate change, one cannot rule out the overflowing sewers, undulating topography, unauthorised constructions and encroachments.

A major cause happens to be choked drains as a result of improper waste management and inadequate provision of storm-water drainage. Land use conversion and urbanisation increases the burden on existing drainage system, resulting in accumulation of excess rainwater on streets. At times, the topography aggravates the situation by creating conditions of flowing water with considerable velocity, which could pose grave risk to both pedestrians as well as vehicular traffic, besides extensive pavement damage.

Past couple of weeks have witnessed chaotic roads in the form of stalled vehicles, submerged automobiles and the daring ones who could zip through massive pools. Scenes of gushing water, people wading through slush and broken-down facilities were commonplace.

While we yearn for our cities to be Smart, there is an implicit need to fix the essential requirements first. The benefits of improved amenities can be harnessed only when the building blocks are in place by way of robust and utilitarian infrastructure. To enhance the Ease of Living, there is a necessity for according top priority to basic must-have needs rather than the top-ups and desirable amenities.

The author is a technocrat with expertise in Data Analytics, Cyber Law and Digital Forensics. He is currently acting as consulting advisor/ mentor to several startups.