Smart City – Smarter City Fathers

Smart City – Smarter City Fathers    

The Government has just selected 20 cities which will become “smart” cities if all goes well within a few years. Probably learning from the past experience Government has refrained from setting a time limit for the cities to get smart, leaving already extra - smart politicians and bureaucrats with every opportunity to carry on in their own inimitable fashion appearing  busy doing important things. Business as usual.

I foresee each of these “smart city” candidates sending delegations to all corners of the world, developed, developing and  undeveloped countries to study some aspect of “smartness” that they want to introduce in their smart city. As a rule the city fathers may well be uneducated but their thirst for knowledge is remarkable and they take their study tours very seriously, not missing on a single opportunity to further the frontiers of their knowledge and further those places are from the frontiers of India more keen they are for these study tours.       

I rushed to meet Netajee to congratulate him since his city was soon to become a smart city under his able leadership.  I had met him a couple of times earlier. Netajee is a man of letters. I mean he can identify A, B C, D right up to Z with may be an error or two here and there. But overall a street-smart guy like all others of his ilk. I expected to find the normal cheery Netajee all gung-ho about the future, busy shuttling from meeting of town-planners to meeting a delegate of real estate developers to negotiating with a group of farmers for acquiring their lands. But the man in front of me was just a pale shadow of his energetic self. He seemed to have a whole load of weight on his shoulders. If you can picture Atlas with the World resting on his shoulders, you would just about begin to get an idea of how Netajee looked. I carried on nevertheless.

I : “Congratulations Netajee.   You must be happy that your city has been chosen for the Smart City program.”

Netajee :  “Uh! Happy?” he seemed to be lost in his own misery.

I : “I am sure you must be happy having been selected for this honour.”  

Netajee : “ Yes, but with this honour comes a great responsibility.”

I : “Yes Netajee. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown and all that. So how do you propose to go ahead with the smart city project?”

Netajee : “ You see we want to develop a green-field city so that the existing infrastructure is not an impediment to development.”

I : “That’s good thinking.” I nodded. “Too many problems about resettlement of existing occupants of land. Look at MHADA and all the SRA projects.”

Netajee : “But the land which is available to us is all barren, far from the existing city limits  and has no vegetation nor any underground water.”

I: “Hmm. I see your problem.”

Netajee : “We need to have some “anchor ” industry which will attract other businesses and residents to locate there and visitors to visit which will develop a complete city. Moreover we want to create new jobs for young men and women especially women. You see woman empowerment is what everybody keeps on talking about.”

I was impressed. Netajee seemed to have thought deeply into the situation.

I: “So how do you propose to proceed?”

Netajee said “Well, we have been giving it a lot of thought and we feel we have been able to identify a model city which has grown in similar wilderness and has thrived over the years creating a whole new industry and generated substantial employment. We want to create a partnership with this city and learn from it.”

I : “That’s excellent!. I must say you are on the right track.”

Netajee : “I am happy you appreciate our thought processes. We are planning an extensive study program which will go deep into each and every aspect of the working of our partner city. Common folk like you are always under misconception that we are not using the public funds judiciously. Never does the media project a correct picture of all the hardships we undergo to conceive and execute projects like these.”

All I could do was to gaze upon this wonderful man with his lofty but so pragmatic ideas who was doing so much for upliftment of common man and the country.  An unsung hero indeed!

I : “So now all you need to do is to send a team there to study the situation first hand and you will be able to replicate those conditions here, maybe with some jugaads  as usual to fit the local conditions.

Netajee sighed glumly. “Wish that was so simple. Budget could be a big constraint. A deal-breaker.”

I : “Surely Netajee with Rs 500 crores being allocated to every smart city, budget should not be a constraint. A few lakhs spent on such study tour will be well worth.”

Netajee snorted. “A few lakhs? A few lakhs you say? All my City Councilors, Commissioners, Ward Officers and everybody’s PAs have already packed their bags. Nobody wants to get left out of such an epoch defining project. Everyone is keen to be a part of the important and educative study tour in spite of the strenuous work it would entail for everyone. We will have to tell the Centre to up the ante. Our back-of-the-envelop calculations  suggest that the entire estimated project cost could be consumed on the study tour alone.”

I was flabbergasted. “So Netajee which is this partner city you have identified?”

Netajee : “Las Vegas”

LazyBee

30^th Jan 2016