With an aim to develop 100 cities in India with technological innovations and a new urban development model at large, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, (MoHUA) Government of India, launched a flagship Smart Cities Mission (SCM) in 2015. As most notable features, the ‘area-based’ and ‘pan-city’ development have been the two key components of the mission. Clearly, the broad objective of the SCM is supposed to develop and upgrade urban infrastructure to address the challenges of urbanisation, and provide a seamless range of data-enabled services and quality living to urban dwellers.
Several studies have analysed the grey literature, smart city mission statement and guidelines and 100 smart city proposals to underscore the benefits and challenges of the mission to meet its goals and vision for urban rejuvenation. Some of the key areas of the mission include urban transport, traffic congestion, slum-free city, security and surveillance with the use of high-end technologies, including the Internet of Things (IoT) and big data.
The mission has completed almost eight years of its launch. However, with just a few of the shortlisted cities managing to implement projects identified in their proposals, SCM has not been able to meet its desired target. In fact, it cannot be said whether India has any city which can be called a ‘smart city’.
Gender Aspect of Smart Cities Mission
How has the mission envisioned a city from a gender lens? The mission underlines it to develop an inclusive approach to benefit all sections of society. When it comes to the gender aspect in smart cities, a quick view of 100 city proposals indicates that each city has tried to incorporate women’s safety and security in its vision and goals. However, the proposals are limited to setting up a command and control centre in each smart city and the use of CCTV cameras to ensure that women feel safe in the city. Integrating police stations with command and control centres and an app-based panic button mechanism is largely what most of the cities have identified in their proposals to alert families and police in case women face any emergency situation. In terms of housing, a few of the cities in their proposals have incorporated measures to provide hostels and accommodations for single women and shelter homes for the homeless.
Take the case of Bihar. From Bihar, four cities, selected under different rounds of the Smart Cities Mission challenge, are on the list of being developed as smart cities: Bhagalpur, Patna, Muzaffarpur, and Bihar Sharif. For women, city proposals do not speak much about women’s safety and empowerment. Action like community and moral policing, establishing hawk squad and pink brigade have been mentioned in the proposal of Bihar Sharif for the safety of girls.
Women-specific actions contemplated in four smart cities of Bihar
Bhagalpur Patna Muzaffarpur Bihar Sharif
A) No specific plan of action with respect to women.
B) In general, the proposal says all sections of society especially old, children and persons with disabilities will be taken care of in design and development of projects. A) The Mahila Police Station at Gandhi Maidan will be integrated for improved patrolling and quick response.
B) Patna will focus on school and health infrastructure, especially for girls to increase their attendance.
C) Sanitary Pad dispensers and incinerators for girl students. A) Women, elderly and children would have enhanced mobility and reduced street crime due to surveillance. A) Women, children, elderly and differently-abled will have dedicated facilities and safe environment.
B) Community and Cultural policing which includes formation of PINK BRIDGE, HAWK SQUAD for safety of girls and senior citizens.
Source: Smart Cities Mission (https://smartcities.gov.in/)
At a recent workshop organised by the Women and Child Development Corporation, Government of Bihar and Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI), to celebrate National Girl Child day in Patna, the state Social Welfare Minister highlighted several steps of the Bihar government, including the cycle and credit schemes for higher education of girls, and other measures like reservation for women in Panchayat and municipal bodies, educational institutions and government jobs. While Bihar is lagging on several indicators like female literacy, sex ratio, and multidimensional poverty, affirmative actions undertaken by the state are praiseworthy for empowering the girl child. What is crucial is that the state should further ensure the convergence of urban schemes like the Smart Cities Mission with other measures for a gender-inclusive and holistic society.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), crime against women in 19 metropolitan cities (Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi, Ghaziabad, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kanpur, Kochi, Kolkata, Kozhikode, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Patna, Pune, and Surat) increased to 23 percent in 2021. The majority of the crimes against women registered in 2021 were under ‘cruelty by husband or his relatives’, kidnapping and abduction of women, and ‘assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty’. These crimes occurred in cities where the smart cities are being developed.
A 2018 study by Housing and Land Rights Network, a civil society group, criticised the mission for failing on several parameters of human rights, specifically on the human right to adequate housing. The report has highlighted blatant violations of human rights including the demolition of homes and forced eviction of low-income people for the development of projects under the mission. The forced eviction, the report says, has resulted in the displacement and homelessness of people including women, children, and persons with disabilities.
Efforts towards developing social infrastructure and a right-based approach to development, therefore, should be the way forward.
Gender-centric Smart, Safe and Sustainable City
A city cannot be labelled as smart merely by having a mechanism for increased surveillance and penetration of CCTV cameras for women’s safety and security. There is a need to address some of the structural gaps and societal mindset for having a gender-inclusive smart and safe city. Work is required on several aspects including the language and discourse around women. Cities should address various myths and stereotypes by undertaking gender-sensitive action for women’s empowerment and an inclusive smart, safe and sustainable city.
While envisioning a smart, safe and sustainable city, another pressing need is to give sustainability its due besides taking into account businesses’ environmental risks as a part of wider economic planning. Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) components should be given their due as the imminent urban transition in India will be greatly benefitted from fairly sensitive urban planning and development. Once in action, the outcome will be even better than anticipated. Considering India has made many transformative transitions successfully while walking with its economic reforms plans, in all likelihood, we can have future urban spaces combining with the attributes of health, wealth and environment and inclusivity.
Atul K Thakur is a Policy Professional, Columnist and Writer with a special focus on South Asia; Ashmita Gupta is an Economist and Faculty at ADRI, Patna; Dipak Kumar is a Researcher at ADRI, Patna. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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