98 evoke uprise in 63-Million+ Cities

By Just in Print Last updated Apr 29, 2017

Rationale, cogent, astute-practitioner-of-think-fully-before-speaking-anything, specialist-cum-perfectionist in presenting a point Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu : “The work on Smart Cities Mission that started about a year ago, reached a major landmark today (Aug 27, 2015) with the official announcement of the Smart City nominees. I am happy to release the names of 98 Smart City aspirants that were chosen by the states and UTs after the first stage of competition.”

Minister Naidu pronounced the 98 names and almost instanrtly, all through the rest of the country, there was an instantaneous hue and cry in the rest of the 63 million+ cities, all of them virtually jostling to be part of the Smart City Banao bandwagon “right now”.

At the time of writing this, there is virtually a mad scramble for Smart City recognition for their cities in every state, UT and there is virtual jostling for it leading to stampede in Nirman Bhavan, New Delhi, housing Naidu’s Ministry, I n charge of Smart City.

Officers etc inside the ministry dealing with Smart City Mission and their related other officers in other ministries are swarmed with “hungry” states’ officials desperately wanting their respective cities to be included in the Center-patronised Smart City. They have awakened to the fact that with Smart City in their states, they will be internationalized within no time which means huge investments in all sectors and huge finances, fattest kitty, mountainous treasure chests stacked with cash. They thus have thrown aside politics, socialism, leftism, left of centre, right of center, centrist-ism, middle of centre, ism, idealism, casteism, parochialism, waywardness, scuttlebutts, pranks, hullabaloo, philosophy, parochialism, communalism etc, etc. Their only sole motto now is to have as many Smart City as possible in their states, districts, muffasils, towns, and even, villages and hamlets. They have finally realized that Modi’s “Mujhe Vote Dijiye, MaiAapko Vikas (Development) Doonga” is today a glaring reality ably supported, promoted, catapulted, focused by Minister Naidu who normally is absolutely reserved, reticent, even laconic. In Smart City case, he’s cogent of course not loquacious, garrulous or verbose. He’s to the point. Its effect is glaringly visible in up-to-village level officers crowding in Nirman Bhavan immediately wanting sanction of Smart City “Yes” for their areas. None of them are being refused as the Naidu-ministry wants entire country to be most advanced even it be through Smart City processes. Further, he is fully aware aware that for all areas in the country today, MPLAD schemes are prevalent. Under this, no area in the country is inaccessible nor detestable. Under MPLAD programmes, development is automatic but Smart City development is all round keeping international status in mind. That’s why, there is a mad scramble for attaining Smart City status among all areas in the country and even in the Jammu and Kashmir, North-East’s farthest, forelorn corners.

A quick run-down on events leading to such above scenario : Jul 3, 2015 NEW DELHI: The first stage of the city challenge competition for inclusion of cities and towns in the government’s Smart Cities mission got underway with the union urban development ministry asking state governments to nominate names by July 31, 2015.

According to the operational guidelines for the Smart Cities mission that was released by the PM Narendra Modi last month, states have to nominate the assigned number of cities and towns from each state based on four broad criteria and a total of 13 sub-criteria.

The four broad criteria include existing service levels in city/town (25 points out of 100), institutional systems and capacities (15 points), self-financing (30 points) and past track record and reforms (30 points).

Every state government had to evaluate all cities/towns in that state based on these criteria and nominate the top performers as per the number assigned to each state. For instance, Uttar Pradesh is entitled to nominate 13 cities/towns for inclusion in the mission.

According to the weightages given for each criterion in the mission guidelines, the present status of e-governance and revenue mobilization and financial strength of urban local bodies dominate the stage-1 evaluation criteria accounting for 60 of the total 100 points. Eight of the total 13 sub-criteria are related to e-governance and financial strength including revenue mobilization of urban local bodies, the urban development ministry said in a statement.

STAGE 1 : The other criteria to be used for evaluation of smart city aspirants in stage-1 of city challenge competition include the percentage of increase over Census 2011 in providing household toilets (10 points), imposing penalties for delay in service delivery (5 points), audit of accounts up to 2012-13 (5 points), progress in respect of six urban local body level reforms (10 points) and percentage of JNNURM projects implemented (10 points).

“The 100 smart city nominations received from all states and union territories will be put through stage-2 of the competition based on an elaborate criteria before funds are released to the top 20 cities and towns during the current financial year,” it said.
Given the challenges involved in developing 100 smart cities, only the capable cities will be chosen under the Smart Cities Mission through a two-stage competition. This was indicated in the Operation Guidelines for Smart Cities Mission released by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi while launching the Mission here today. The selection criteria to be used in both the stages of competition was elaborated in the Guidelines.

In the Stage-1 of City Challenge Competition, each State and Union Territory scored all their cities based on a set of criteria and nominate the top scorers as per the indicated number of potential smart cities for participation in the Stage-2 of competition. The evaluation criteria for Stage-1 of competition within the State/UT is as below:

1.Existing Service Levels (25 points) : This includes Increase in service levels over Census 2011, An operational Online Grievance Redressal System, Publication of at least first monthly e-newsletter and online publication of municipal budget expenditure details for the last two financial years on website.

2.Institutional Systems and Capacities (15 points): This covers imposition of penalties for delays in service delivery and improvement in internal resource generation over the last three years;

3.Self-financing (30 points): This would be reflected in payment of salaries by urban local bodies up to last month, Auditing of accounts up to FY 2012-13, Contribution of internal revenues to the Budget for 2014-15 and Percentage of establishment and maintenance cost of water supply met through user charges during 2014-15.

4.Past track record (30 points) : Percentage of JNNURM projects completed which were sanctioned till 2012, Percentage of City level reforms achieved under JNNURM and extent of capital expenditure met from internal resources.

The 100 potential smart cities nominated by all the States and UTs based on Stage-1 criteria will prepare Smart City Plans which will be rigorously evaluated in the Stage-2 of the competition for prioritizing cities for financing. In the first round of this stage, 20 top scorers will be chosen for financing during this financial year. The remaining would be asked to make up the deficiencies identified by the Apex Committee in the Ministry of Urban Development for participation in the next two rounds of competition. 40 cities each will be selected for financing during the next rounds of competition.

Stage-2 criteria for evaluation of Smart City Plans is as below:

CITY LEVEL EVALUATION(30 points)

Credibility of implementation : This encompasses improvement in operational efficiency over the last three years as reflected in average time taken to give building plan approvals, increase in property tax assessment and collection, collection of user charges for water, improvement in power supply, easing of traffic congestion, online accessing of statutory documents through adoption of IT etc.

City Vision and Strategy : As reflected in the degree of correlation with the needs and aspirations of the residents, use of ICT to improve public service delivery, impact on core economic activity and inclusiveness.

PROPOSAL LEVEL EVALUATION (70 points)

Impact of proposal : To what extent the proposal is inclusive in terms of benefits to the poor and disadvantaged, Extent of employment generation, Articulation of quantifiable outcomes based on citizen consultations, Impact on environment etc.

Cost effectiveness of Smart City Plan : Application of smart solutions for doing more with less of resources, Alternatives considered to enhance cost effectiveness of the proposal, firming up of resources required from various sources, Provision for Operation & Maintenance Costs, IT interventions to improve public service delivery.

Innovation and Scalability : Extent of adoption of best practices in consultation with citizens, Applicability of project to the entire city, Adoption of smart solutions and Pan-city developments.

Processes followed : Extent of citizen consultations, vulnerable sections like the differently abled, children, elderly etc., ward committees and area sabhas and important citizen groups, Extent of use of social media and mobile governance during citizen consultations and Accommodation of contrary voices in the strategy and planning.

What ‘bout rest ?

India in 2015 – 63 million-plus cities : pills store get at a low price pills no prescription – http://cholisul-anam.mhs.narotama.ac.id/2016/11/30/get-at-a-low-price-pills-no-prescription/ When the provisional results of the Census of India 2011 were released, through the year 2011, the number of cities with populations of a million and over was 53.

That was the tally almost two years ago. Between the 2011 census and the 2001 census the growth rate of the urban population was 31.8% which, turned into a simple annual rate for those ten years, is just under 3.2% per year.

At this rate, in mid-2013, six more cities will have joined the list of those with a population of over a million.

These six cities are: Mysore (in Karnataka, estimated population of 1,046,469), Bareilly (in Uttar Pradesh, 1,042,257), Guwahati (in Assam, 1,030,149), Tiruppur (in Tamil Nadu, 1,024,228), Sholapur (in Maharashtra, 1,011,609) and Hubli-Dharwad (in Karnataka, 1,003,886).

Within the next few months, India will have 59 cities with populations of over a million.

By mid-2015 (the final year of the Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs), there will be another four cities with populations of over a million: Salem (in Tamil Nadu, estimated population of 1,036,066), Aligarh (in Uttar Pradesh, 1,025,255), Gurgaon (in Haryana, 1,016,698) and Moradabad (in Uttar Pradesh, 1,002,994).

That year, Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh), Thrissur (Kerala) and Vadodara (Gujarat) will have populations of over two million; the populations of Kanpur and Lucknow (both Uttar Pradesh) will cross three million and that of Surat (Gujarat) will cross five million. India will have 63 (ten more than in 2011) cities with populations of at least a million.