There are 10 basic needs for achieving the yardstick and Citizens expect those basic amenities. The main and the major ones are commented upon here:-
We need to have a better public transport system to be at par with the world’s best cities. The growing urbanisation has increased the number of private vehicles thereby creating traffic congestion in almost all cities of India. In Mumbai, we look upon local trains as our lifeline and if it stops on a day, everything goes awry.
In our roads, the pedestrians should be given a pride of place. We need to have a better planning to make our dream come true. Citizens will enjoy wide pathways with street furniture at regular intervals with easy mobility to differently-abled. Car-free Sunday that will make streets available for citizens to interact and do a lot of activities on streets.
Availability of adequate parking is the need of the hour as the number of vehicles are plying on the roads. With more and more heavy vehicles on the street, manoeuvring through the heavy vehicular traffic is a tough task. On-street parking management is a reliable revenue for the cities, which can be used to further strengthen the public transportation system in cities. Managing the on-street parking will reduce traffic congestion, increase effective carriageway width available for the vehicles to commute, reduce fuel, reduces proposition in the smart city race. Thus, we would like to have less traffic congestion.
As we propose to have a safe and sound living with hassle-free civic services. Initiatives such as LED lights to ensure pedestrian safety, video surveillance to monitor crime in the city with an effective common control centre to monitor the traffic violations and to ensure efficient on-street parking management. Most importantly, this will enable citizen’s engagement in all aspects of city functioning as the data sharing or transparency between government and citizens will be a forum for citizens to understand the know-how of their city.
The major and foremost is the need for disaster management cell. Disasters are inevitable, however, human interventions in taking up precautionary measures will help in minimising the loss to a great extent. A clean and healthy neighbourhood is a blessing in disguise. Solid waste management through smart solutions to make roads clean and to ensure a healthy environment is considered as an important factor for smart cities. Recycling of waste will produce renewable energy, ensures safe disposal of solid waste, prevents soil and environmental pollution and reduces the depletion of resources.
There is a need for easy access to all basic infrastructure with best quality cent per cent efficiency. The efficiency of the utilities in one that is not achieved till date due to inadequate monitoring. Making the city beautiful is of foremost importance. Cities are focusing on developing more lung spaces in the city. As a part of smart city initiatives, smart components like cycling, street furniture, jogging track, space for hawkers etc., will contribute a lot in enhancing the aesthetic of the city. Green spaces will get a new dimension with new soft and hard landscape with Wi-fi hot spots, which will be an interesting sport for citizens to relax, exercise and interact. It also plays a major role in creating a healthy and sustained environment.
Now it is time to make sure that the city is clean and green to give the much-needed ambience required for setting up a smart city. The city will have to take up the additional responding of providing quality education, dependable power supply, health consciousness, e-governance, affordable housing for poor, water supply and several other sectors would be the centre of focus under the project. Smart city tag will bring cheers to the citizens of the country and we dream of becoming a place to behold in the world.
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
