Planning Model Villages and Smart Cities the Right Way

Sep 19, 2014 Tushita Economy 0

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In his budget speech, Arun Jaitley, the minister of Finance had said “The Prime Minister has a vision of developing one hundred smart cities as satellite towns of larger cities by modernising the existing mid-sized cities. To provide the necessary focus to this critical activity, I have provided a sum of [Rs.] 7,060 crore in the current fiscal.”

This is indeed a very ambitious programme for development of both urban and remote areas.

Prime Minister Modi through his Independence Day speech requested each Member of Parliament to transform at least one village in of his or her constituency into a ‘model village’ by 2016. Gradually selecting two more villages after 2016 and then more by 2019, each MP in his/her area should have at least five model villages.

Though the scheme looks intelligent on the outside, but if launched without proper execution in mind, they mind end up wasting a lot of money and resources. There can be taken meticulous steps to plan the programme with precise details and make the idea work.

Following basic rules:

The idea has envisaged massive urbanisation, but the question remains that is India fully prepared for it? It has been always seen that as a country advances financially, agricultural share in the country’s GDP, employment and land use goes down the graph over a period of time.

Statistically speaking, by the current figures if India achieves this goal, by 2050, more than 85 per cent of the total population will be residing on cities. Rural population will decline drastically while urban population will increase more than four times. Thus, almost the whole country will be living in towns and cities and not villages.

Now the choice is between going ahead without a proper plan to build unplanned cities like always or taking smart steps for creating planned towns and cities.

It is easy to say that a wave of urbanisation can be brought to the remotest of the rural areas, but it is not practically possible to provide the sort of facilities that modern areas require. These areas which are being called ‘rurban’, meaning the rural-urban, will not be able to the complexities of ultra-modern lives.

India has 6 lakh villages and each one inhabits 1000 people on an average. Providing proper health, education, medical facilities and education without adequate amenities for people who will be brought here to carry these operations looks like a vague idea. Teachers and doctors simply refuse to shift to these villages without adequate facilities for their families. Creating model villages therefore isn’t feasible. And if the villagers are educated they will migrate to cities, leaving these model villages half-deserted.

Clustering the villages in modern way:

Chitrakoot in Madhya Pradesh, is a good example of a clusters of model villages. According to this approach, a central town inhabiting 50,000 people as in 100 or so villages, in each tehsil will be built with urban facilities. Being urban, it will be easier to accommodate teachers and doctors here. Agro-industries can also be later built. The functioning and structuring will be carried out on the lines of Special Economic Zones.

The management will be left to rural communities along with the urban administrators. And the infrastructure would be laid out and developed before the residents move in.

Funding:

The funding can be sourced by capital gains due to land conversion accruing to the new urban authorities rather than landowners. If the landowners are paid duly, unlike previous times and employment is guaranteed in the process of development and construction, then the idea can be carried out with much ease.

The value of the land can be worked out by consensus of the landowners at present market value. After urbanisation the lands will have become host to buildings 10-15 floors high, increasing the value 10-15 times.

Even if half the land acquired is auctioned to private developers at market rate, the authorities of the towns will earn handsome gain, which will be more than enough to bring about modern infrastructural development with up-to-date facilities.

Thus the plans should be laid to acquire such villages and develop them into model village clusters every year, so that after ten or twelve years, the entire country can be covered.

Funding for smart cities:

Going by the same logic smart cities can also be developed. These cities can be accustomed not only to IT growth but also to modern design. The physical and social features of such cities can also be enhanced and novel policy regime regarding the governance and administration. FDI in retail can attract ample revenue for the cities without dislodging any shopkeepers, but only attracting inhabitants further.

In comparison to the initially mentioned idea, even if we manage to build 100 such smart cities over the next five years, we can aspire to have some 1000 such cities over the next 50 years, encompassing all district towns. The method of land conversion and auctions for the acquired areas can be similar to the one used for village clusters. The capital gains that will result from land conversions will help in financing and infrastructure building considerably. And thus lead to self-financing in the cities.

Inferring from this plan, it is clear that in order to carry out the ideas of urban and rural development at large scale, the planning needs to be effective and practical for sound future of the inhabitants.

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• 'smart cities' as satellite towns, greenfield smart cities, Singapore, smart city, smart city project

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