With the Government’s Smart City mission yet to pick up the desired momentum, a case in point of on-ground efficiency is that of Jaipur’s independent and localised approach
Suddenly the word “smart” doesn’t seem quite apt in the urban lexicon when it comes to developing cities in Southeast and South Asia, particularly India, where 40 per cent of the population is expected to live in cities by 2030 and satellite towns are aggregating into economic hubs with an ever increasing pie in the state Gross Domestic Product. Although digital majors envisioned the “smart cities” concept almost a decade ago as a futuristic sci-fi society, regulated by Internet and technology, with better-managed resources, data-driven, hub and spoke response modules and streamlined human conveniences, on ground it has been unsustainable as a “one size fits all” equity model. That’s because the blueprint was largely driven by IT majors and their rather “unsmart” projection of a reality posited on copybook parameters and not on the axle of human truths, lived experiences of urban governance or test cases. Most importantly, it assumed that the world was not lopsided but ironed out with an optic fibre network.
There were more questions than answers, particularly in the developing world — how to avoid creating piloted islands in an already unequal world, how not to create a privileged neo-elite, how to bring the old cities with conventional infrastructure up to speed, how to prioritise the poorer towns vis-à-vis those with a global upgrade, how to justify a new formula without taking care of infrastructure and basic social criteria of healthcare, education and affordability, how to reach out to the unaware who have trouble putting together basic necessities of life, how to keep a new convergence matrix going and viable beyond the SPVs, how to ensure that private partners aren’t more commercial than altruisticIJ In short, each city threw up a new challenge and differing eco-systems. This has forced a relook at the applicability of the smart city roadmap and over the last few years has mutated into such concepts like “engaged cities,” where the citizenry is connected and involved in working out its own solutions or “compassionate cities” where the human index is the deterministic factor in any technological revolution.
These questions have been troubling us too though the smart city mission, by not defining what is the ideal framework, has left space for indigenisation and innovation. And while the status sheet looks a bit like scattered blips on the radar, some of our cities have had results with micro-zoned test cases and localised redressal. Take the case of JDA (Jaipur Development Authority), which has evolved a smart city model all its own independent of the Central plan and seems to have changed the way we would look at Jaipur, particularly the congested tourist district. It is a tough challenge, to streamline the chaos in the old city areas, with smart camera feeds and video monitoring. But this data pool is being effectively used by various agencies to enhance the on-ground efficiency of service delivery through existing infrastructural processes. It is like doing up the same old house at minimal cost. The Abhay Command Centre, a surveillance network at the State Commissionerate of police, is a case in point. Neatly tucked away in a series of about five interlinked rooms in one corner of the sprawling colonial building, it is the eagle eye of Jaipur. From traffic movement to crime and responding to emergency calls, it has given more than an edge to the city police. Making sense of the live streaming on the monitors and the giant screen are young men and women, not a fancy cyber brigade with android intelligence, but regulars from the local police who have been trained to multi-task and can be banked upon for their knowledge of on-ground situations. Whether it is easing up the traffic chaos and opening up alternative routes, monitoring and managing parking bays, chasing traffic offenders or rescuing accident victims within the golden hour, tracking eve-teasing or harassment of tourists, tailing thefts, illicit drug and hooch dealers, the command centre is on top of things. With HDR cameras, it can zoom into the shadiest of deals happening in alleys or lurking behind a food vendor’s cart in a crowded bazaar. The virtual feed triggers an alarm in case of an incident which is immediately notified to nearby patrolling units, who are in turn monitored for their action, redressal and end-point satisfaction levels — was it swift enough, targeted enough, effective enoughIJ The self-check is even extended to keep tabs on police posts; they cannot afford to be caught napping anymore. The call-complaint module is layered too, with an SMS being sent to cellphones and calls made to landlines to reassure victims that help is on the way. The police have even used the road feed and linked it to their cameras inside prison vans carrying dreaded criminals. Here they have innovated simply because they have seen too many armed escapades in transit and have worked out an anticipatory vigilance.
The volume of crime doesn’t really go up or down because there is no policing human intent but it has certainly improved the image of the city police among the community who were largely indifferent and not expectant of services. This has further strengthened the police morale to engage with the community, visiting homes of senior citizens and building empathy into the system.
The same feed is also being used by JDA to keep a check on encroachments or illegal extensions. The system analytics are not drawn from world templates but from those that are in operation in our own metros and adapted in a relevant manner to local, low-cost imperatives.
The lED lighting network at tourist sites, that is connected to a hub by wi-fi and switched on and off in a synchronised manner, and intelligent kiosks at tourists sites that help you from bookings and parkings at a click, have made it possible for city tourism authorities to start a “Jaipur by night” circuit. Result: Maximise revenue from each site. An app helps you navigate eateries, sightseeing and air quality while E-mitras, or trained local youth, are around to make sense to the luddite. Jaipur has emerged as India’s lighthouse city as part of which there are embedded wireless sensors in waste bins to check levels, optimise collection schedules, disposal and recycling. Definitely, such steps have led citizenry towards smart thinking, with civil works focussed on flyways and bypasses, satellite business hubs, reviving gardens and recharging water bodies. The Jaipur model shows how doable incremental steps and wise expenditure, using existing infrastructure and assets, can make a difference to citizenry. Naya Raipur has already drawn lessons from Delhi’s ambient crisis and has provisioned a natural carbon sink in the middle of the city with a forested biosphere. Pune is actively involving citizen experts for changing the human scale of living.
Urban planners world over are changing the smart city to smart wisdom cities if you can call it that. Seoul has emerged as a model of the “sharing economy” model. While it has the fastest Internet penetration and the highest optic fibre density in the world, it has introduced the concept of sharing social services to reduce excesses and over-consumption of resources. “Sharing City” means sharing public spaces during idle hours for private events, sharing parking spaces, used clothes, empty rooms of senior citizens, sharing common spaces in apartment blocks rather than keeping individual houses and so on. While it requires rewiring of social mindsets, it is worth a try. Perhaps our smaller cities will evolve better in this respect.
(The writer is Associate Editor, The Pioneer)
