Smart cities are urban areas that leverage advanced technologies and data-driven solutions to enhance efficiency, sustainability, and overall quality of life for their residents. In the context of India, the concept of smart cities has gained prominence as the country undergoes rapid urbanization. The relevance of smart cities for urban development in India lies in their potential to address challenges such as traffic congestion, inadequate infrastructure, and environmental degradation. However, there is a concern that the implementation of smart cities might exacerbate rural-urban differences, as technological advancements may not be evenly distributed. To counter this, the idea of ‘Smart Villages’ gains significance, aligning with initiatives like PURA (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas) and RURBAN Mission. By investing in technology, infrastructure, and connectivity in rural areas, these missions aim to bridge the urban-rural gap and create balanced development across the country. Smart Villages, coupled with inclusive policies, can contribute to holistic and sustainable development, ensuring that the benefits of technological advancements reach all segments of the population.
Tag: Indian economy and issues related to planning, mobilization of resources, growth development and employment.
Decoding the Question:
- In the Intro, try to Start your answer with defining smart cities.
- In Body,
- Examine the relevance of smart city mission in urban development.
- Give your opinion on whether smart cities increase rural-urban differences and discuss the concept of smart villages in context of PURA and RURURBAN Mission.
- Try to conclude with a balanced opinion.
Answer:
A smart city uses information and communication technology (ICT) to improve operational efficiency, share information with the public, and provide a better quality of government service and citizen welfare. In a smart city economic development and activity are sustainable and rationally incremental by being based on success-oriented market drivers such as supply and demand, which benefit everybody like business, citizens, government, and most importantly environment.
Relevance of smart city mission in urban development:
- Rapid and haphazard growth: Urban areas and cities account for mass migration from rural areas in search of good life conditions such as employment, education, health, and other basic facilities. This leads to increased pressure on urban infrastructure and has resulted in haphazard development of urban areas.
- E-Governance and Citizen Services: It will help in making a citizen centric service delivery system, which will enhance the efficiency of public authorities.
- Engines of economic growth: Out of 121 crore people of India roughly 30% lives in urban areas and the remaining large chunk of population lives in rural areas. Smart cities offer opportunities of inclusive economic growth.
- Smart Waste Management: Waste management is one of the major problems in urban settlement. Smart waste management like separation of solid waste at source level and use of eco-friendly waste disposal techniques, would avoid the problems like urban floods situation.
- Smart Health: Tele-medicine would reduce the pressure on medical facilities due to use of ICT in health facilities.
- Mobility system: Smart transport is also one of the main features that address the core issue in urban settlement. Many other areas such as, education, communication, electricity, renewable energy would also be addressed by the Smart Cities.
- Traffic: Rising population in urban areas resulting in increased traffic congestion becomes a problem, increasing the time it takes to commute over even smaller distances.
- Share in national GDP: Cities contribute to over 60% of GDP and it is expected to reach at three-fourth of India’s total GDP by 2030.
- Environmental concerns: Vulnerability to risk posed by the increasing man-made and natural disasters are increasing. Smart planning of urban centres can be very significant for addressing specific city wise concerns or disasters etc.
- Health issues: The concentration of a large population living in squalor in slums in the urban sprawl makes it a haven for the spread of diseases. Example ongoing Pandemic has proved how megacities affected due to Covid-19.
Higher development in urban areas and less emphasis on rural areas has increased rural- urban differences because of lack of opportunities in rural areas. In this context the smart villages concept under Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Rurban mission would focus on rural development with multi prong approach. To ensure standard of development several components has been included in smart villages concept such as skill development training linked to economic activities, Agro processing, storage and warehousing facilities, digital literacy, sanitation, provision of piped water supply and solid and liquid waste management.
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