smart city

The 2018 drinking water crisis in Shimla, a horrifying time when the hill town did not get a drop of water for almost eight days, was a wake-up call both for citizens and urban planners on the need to conserve its water resources. Environmentalists had then stressed the need for putting in place an efficient water management system, not only for Shimla but for the entire hill region. “The 2018 water crisis was an opportunity that called for a response based on scientific inputs about the overall water scarcity problem in the Himalayan region and a way forward to avert…

The snow-capped Dauladhar mountains paint a picturesque backdrop to the town that today aspires to be a popular hub as a global tourist destination, as the business capital of Himachal Pradesh and as a centre for promoting sporting talent in the region. For decades, Dharamshala’s only claim to fame was as the home of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and the creation of McLeodganj as the headquarters of the Tibetan government in exile, now renamed the Central Tibetan Administration. “Today, Dharamshala can become one of India’s best towns,” said I. D Bhandari, retired IPS officer and former DGP who…

Cycling was originally proposed as one of the preferred means of mass transport in Chandigarh city by its designer Le Corbusier himself. Corbusier envisaged laying out cycle tracks (classified as V7 and V8 roads) as part of the Master Plan for the city during its construction in the 1950s. As per the plan, every V3 road (fast vehicular roads dividing the sectors) across the city was to have a V7 road (cycle track), or a V8 road (cycle track plus footpath). “The Master Plan envisaged laying out cycle tracks of over 200 kms,” said Navdeep Asija, Traffic Advisor to the…

The intentions were noble, but as usual got derailed by poor implementation. Bhopal’s smart bicycle service, first introduced two years back, is a typical example. The main reasons for the lukewarm public response to it were the initial high rental cost, inadequate number of cycles available and poor choice of location of the cycle rental stations. The government addressed the first issue recently by cutting the one-time registration fee for renting a bike. To encourage students, women and elderly people to rent a bicycle, the earlier one-size-fits-all fee of Rs 500 was cut to Rs 50 for college students and…

Cyclone Fani in early May was one more reminder for Bhubaneswar of its vulnerability to extreme weather events, and the massive damage to urban infrastructure that such events could bring about, even in an upcoming ‘smart’ city. Fani left Bhubaneswar in shambles  in its trail, with uprooted trees all around falling on roads and buildings, disrupting major services like supply of water and electricity as well as Internet connectivity. Life in the city remained miserable for weeks. Last year too, life in the city had been severely disrupted, as it almost went under water following unusually heavy rainfall of nearly…

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his campaign speech in Aligarh on April 14th, invoked three main development indicators, "bijli...kanoon vyavastha...sadak” (electricity, law and order and roads)**." Development or "vikas" has been one of two constants in his campaign; the other being "karobaar " or business. In his Aligarh speech, he specifically mentioned how this election was a fight to get "nyay" not only for youth, women and farmers but also for "chote karobaari" or small business owners. Yet, in Aligarh, vikas and chote karobaari clashed head on when shops belonging to small business owners were demolished to widen roads as…

Dharwad Parliamentary Constituency (number 11) comprises eight assembly constituencies - Navalgund, Kundgol, Dharwad, Hubli-Dharwad-East, Hubli-Dharwad-Central, Hubli-Dharwad-West, Kalghatgi and Shiggaon. Six of these constituencies are held by the BJP while the remaining two (Kundgol and Hubli-Dharwad East) are held by Congress. Dharwad constituency came into being during the delimitation in 2008. Since then, it has been represented by Pralhad Joshi of BJP. While the constituency is new, this region's history dates back a thousand years, to the 11th century temple of Aharanishankar. It was around this temple that Pubballi (meaning ‘the old village’) developed. A few centuries later, the nearby ‘gateway…

Like most other cities in India, Bhubaneswar has two faces. One is as tinselly and bright as you would expect a fast-growing city to be. The other frowns with the strain and concentration of having to look good. Bhubaneswar was the first choice of the Ministry of Urban Development's (MoUD) flagship Smart City project. A year later, it featured in the top 20 global cities of the world in the Global Smart City Performance Index 2017,  according to a survey by UK-based Juniper Research. The city was a member of a list that included Singapore (that topped the list), San Francisco, London, New…

After intense overnight showers, Bhubaneswar woke up on a Saturday morning in July with half the city under water. The situation at the capital of the eastern state of Odisha in many ways typifies poor urban management in India that is crumbling under adverse climatic conditions. Residents in many parts of the city were stranded in their homes and the condition was so dire in some parts that the state’s disaster response team had to start rescue operations. Roads in the state capital looked like gushing streams. Disaster response forces moved to waterlogged areas with floating pumps to drain out…

It was in 1997 that Bangalore city corporation issued the first municipal bond in India, backed by a state government guarantee. The next year, Ahmedabad issued bonds worth Rs 100 crore, without government guarantee. But the momentum didn’t pick up - bonds worth only about Rs 1500 cr have been issued overall since then, and there have been no issues in the more recent years. Last June, however, Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) became the first city to issue bonds after a long gap. Bonds worth Rs 200 cr were issue to fund PMC’s 24X7 water supply project. Then again, in…