Much fanfare since Panaji was included in the 98-city, 48,000 crore Smart City project. But no specifics have been announced, no plans or blueprints shared with the public. So what is all the fuss about?
“Smart cities are a con job”, architect Dean D’Cruz said in an interview earlier this week, “while we do need to make our cities livable through public transport, better communication, etc, the smart city movement is spearheaded by material and technology suppliers who offer easy solutions to lazy planners.” That message was echoed by Rahul Mehrotra, one of India’s leading architects, professor at Harvard University (and the late Charles Correa’s son-in-law). He told an interviewer, “I have no idea what a smart city means because this is a universal term that has no real value except for the people who are sloshing capital around. The problem…is that they are founded on capital and investment, but don’t consider the human being as part of the equation. I fear these will end up being gated communities.” Mehrotra says “companies…were looking to export their goods and politicians like Narendra Modi and others picked this up, because it becomes a justification to invest huge amounts, acquire lots of land, emulate in a facile way, Dubai and Shanghai, which are autocracies. [Smart cities] are architectural expressions of autocracies, not of democracies.” In other words, “so I can stand at a bus stop and know that the bus is going to arrive in 10 minutes, and that will save me 10 minutes, but if it’s an inhuman city then I’m not interested in saving those 10 minutes.” “No urban development project has been more confusing and misleading than the Smart City scheme” writes A. Srivathsan, professor at Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology University, Ahmedabad, in his detailed critique of the government policy in The Wire (thewire.in). “More chatter than plans with clear substance,” he says, “the Smart Cities project…is a recipe for skewed development rather than a vision for a sound urban future.” As Rahul Mehrotra pointed out, the initial idea that Modi became enamoured with was an updated SEZ concept. A fortified real estate enclave created on government-appropriated land, where cheap real estate could be provided to private companies. These “greenfield” projects could be equipped with advanced surveillance, unlimited supply of subsidized utilities, all kinds of enhanced technologies, upscale malls, hotels, apartments, and even free-trade zones. This is precisely what Modi has tried to create on former grazing lands in the controversial China-style Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) over 886 acres near Gandhinagar, touted as one of his proudest achievements. GIFT was the “success story” behind the BJP manifesto’s gaudy election promise to “initiate building 100 new cities enabled with the latest in technology and infrastructure.” That line became a staple of Modi’s speeches, where he would pound the lectern promising to build 100 “smart cities.” Even after the BJP took over in 2014, its first budget accounted for building “new cities” because, according to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, otherwise “the existing cities would soon become unliveable”. Only a few months later, an inexplicable reversal, and, the Smart Cities project, as Srivathsan says, “started sounding like every other development project that preceded it.” Like most of the very bad ideas Goa’s citizens have been strongarmed into (or proved gullible enough to swallow), the Smart Cities scheme carries huge hidden costs, and is predicated on highly inappropriate, capital-intensive and scam-friendly infrastructure projects. Srivathsan points out “cities need to upgrade…but that does not mean they have to choose a system that involves prohibitive capital and high operating costs…adopting smart systems may substantially increase the investment burden. Cities can step up their digital investment, but it should match their resources and capacity to sustain.” This is the crux of the matter. Can Panjim - a city that had to bargain hard over a few extra rupees per day to garbage collectors, and halted vital roadworks because of “no money in the budget” - blithely adopt wildly expensive technologies which will require huge sums to maintain? Just this week, the Urban Development Ministry firmly insisted that cities will have to bear 100% of the maintenance costs of all services after the initial investments come from the centre. Goan citizens have been taken for an outstanding ride by the state’s political and economic elites for decades, and this government further demonstrates they think the electorate is made up of suckers who will take whatever is dished out without complaint. The land grab – and illegal bridge – at Tiracol. The ridiculous third bridge over the Mandovi, while the lone bridge over the Zuari quivers in the wind. The monumental Lusofonia stadia, which no one is allowed to use. The billion-dollar “second airport” at Mopa, that is designed to kill the first one at Dabolim. And now “smart city” designation for beautiful little Panjim, assuming that Goans are too stupid to know they are being tricked yet again.