Smart Cities Mission - Question of Cities

The way forward for urban local bodies to finance climate action

Cities in India are at a preliminary stage of climate actions. A 126-cities survey showed that urban local bodies are spending two-three percent, or less, of their budgets on climate-related activities. Only 50 out of 4,800 cities are preparing or…

A new urban agenda for India built on reflections of the last decade

Since 2014, cities have found a special focus in the government’s policies and programmes. But how did some prominent programmes like Swachh Bharat Mission, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, Smart Cities Mission fare? Broadly, while some gains are evident, they overlooked…

Smart Cities Mission: Reflections on gains and losses, nine years on

Most of the 100 cities chosen under the Smart Cities Mission, launched with great fanfare in 2015, have spent or allocated funds for projects and set up Special Purpose Vehicles. Although the Mission outlined redevelopment, retrofitting and greenfield projects as…

M-East Mumbai: Votes don’t improve lives but they vote anyway

The cramped, polluted and neglected civic ward in the city, which houses migrant workers and project-affected persons displaced from other parts of Mumbai, shows the failure of politics to respond to people’s needs, in a sense. The triad of roti-naukri-makaan…

Sustainability and people’s participation in the era of smart solutionism

The Smart Cities Mission was launched to improve the quality of life through digitalisation and data-driven solutions. This included interventions such as installing a multitude of sensors, deploying citizens’ apps, and creating various dashboards and platforms where administrators can monitor…