Policy of the Month Series: Smart Cities Programme
By: Public Policy, Analysis Cell
Tags: Public Policy, Policy Research, Smart Cities, India, Singapore

Smart Cities Programme: A Comparative Study between India and Singapore

Authors: Priya Sarah Varghese Vanshika Nagpal Vridhi Hingorani

The Smart City Mission aims to build and implement a sustainable economic and social model via the application of various solutions like digital technologies, smart urban planning and development, and efficient policies. Smart Cities include data and digital technology in the process to make better decisions and improve the quality of life. Other than that, Smart Cities are, by definition, focused on using emerging technologies and innovation to make cities more liveable, and offer new services and economic opportunities. These smart solutions are all geared towards providing a decent quality of life to its residents, as well as act as a barometer for future aspiring smart cities in other parts of the country.

The Smart Cities Mission in India was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 25 June 2015 with an aim to build 100 smart cities in India. The focus lay on infrastructural development and better basic facilities for the citizens of the country. Over the years, India has become the 6th largest economy. As per the census 2011, the slum population in India is 17.36% as a percentage of the urban population; the Smart cities mission is one of its king efforts by the government under which efforts are being made to lift people out of poverty. The programme directly impacts 99,630,069 people with a total cost of Rs. 2,03,172 crores. The programme largely aims to build sustainable cities in India in order to integrate environmental and social sustainability in planning and resource management. InitialIy, 100 cities have been incorporated in the programme that are supposed to become model cities in order to inspire other cities to become smart. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Big Data has been identified as the most important resources as it integrates information from the rest of the components to help in the decision-making process of the management of smart cities

On the other hand, Singapore is amongst the smartest cities in the world. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in 2014 launched the Smart Nation Initiative and three years later the government benefited from it after investing SGD 2.4 billion. The three key plans were “Digital Economy Framework for Action, Digital Government Blueprint and Digital Readiness Blueprint’’. Under the programme, the Singaporean government focused largely on community

and transport systems as they identified this as the base to their initiative. This has ensured that the nation is moving forward to achieve the same goals and objectives. Since the area unit of Singapore is much smaller than India, the government targeted the whole country at once.

The Government of India launched the mission with specific criteria and a full-fledged selection process of the 100 cities. The States and Union Territories are selected based on a two-step selection process. In the first step, the State and Union Territories start with selecting the potential smart cities based on conditions precedent and scoring criteria and per the total number allocated to these cities.

In the second step, the Ministry of Urban Development selects the cities. In this round, the national level competition is held among the potential 100 smart cities and in this stage, each city presents its Smart City Proposal (SCP) which contains the facts and figures, whether retrofitting or redevelopment or greenfield development or a mix thereof and additionally includes a Pan-City dimension with Smart Solutions. The winners of round 1 of the challenge will be announced by the Ministry of Urban Development.

In India, the mission strategy is to develop the areas one step at a time, implement retrofitting, greenfield and redevelopment. The core objectives include the provision of adequate water supply, assured electricity supply, sanitation, including solid waste management, efficient urban mobility and public transport system, affordable housing, especially for the poor, strong IT connectivity, good governance and policy, a sustainable environment, the safety of citizens, particularly women, children and the elderly, and quality health and education.

In essence, Singapore’s Smart City mission is similar yet has a different strategy and outlook altogether. The process is more focused on total transformation through technology. Under the three major pillars, they have launched initiatives including strategic national projects, urban living, transport, health, digital government and startups and businesses. Singapore’s urban living include drones to survey dengue hotspot, Virtual Singapore- a 3D modelling platform for collaborative planning, a smart elderly alert system, ‘OneService App’ for the public to report municipal issues across public agencies.

Transport initiatives include unique spearhead research in standards for Self Driving Vehicles (SDV’s), on-demand shuttle; where autonomous technology and public transport data support mobility on demand. Health initiatives include assistive technology and robotics in healthcare and Healthhub- a one-stop digital healthcare portal for Singaporeans to access medical records and useful health information.

Evidently, Singapore’s initiatives are carried out by a range of unique and entirely technology-based solutions, which is the key differentiator from India’s Smart City Mission. India’s mission lacks a comprehensive and detailed solution of how each objective is to be carried out. How affordable housing is to be provided, how the safety of women will be assured and how the rest of the objectives are to be implemented is unclear.

On the other hand, the Singapore Government’s Smart Nation vision is a response to growing urban challenges of ageing population, urban density and energy sustainability. The Singapore government has also published its milestone on the website to inform their citizens of what they have done from the day they have started the mission. Future milestones have also been published on the website to show that the government is committed to transforming the nation into a Smart Nation. Also, Singapore has streamlined its initiative to the only one objective which is the Smart Nation ensuring that the nation moves forward to achieve the same goals and objectives. It is found that Singapore is very coherent in implementing its solution after the announcement of the Smart Nation initiative.

In terms of the progress made so far, the situation is quite different in both countries. In India out of the 5,151 projects initially proposed, only 3,629 have been actively taken forward. Of these, about 25% of the projects have been concluded. But in terms of value, the share of work completed amounts to just 11% of the total. According to a 2019 report, of the total Rs 48,000 crore-approved budget between 2015–2019, only half the money was allocated. Out of the allocated funds, only three-fourths has been released and a mere 36 per cent of the funds released were utilized. While over Rs 17,000 crore has been released for different projects, only Rs 6,160 crore has been used. The budgets for the top 99 cities vary between a little over INR 500 Crore (Kavaratti, Lakshadweep) to almost INR 6000 Crore (Chandigarh). Within this range, cities primarily focused on budgets under INR 2000 crore (57 cities), followed by those between INR 2000–4000 Crore (38 cities) and only a handful opted for budgets above INR 4000 crore. The transportation sector has a proposed budget of INR 32,600 Crore (INR 326 billion), almost a quarter of the entire budget for the top 60 cities. The energy sector has a budget of up to INR 22535.8 crores and the bulk of these projects are area based at 77.5% In Energy and Ecology, the majority of funding is available for energy-based projects including renewable energy, gas, metering and distribution and constitutes 23.3% of the budget. The budget of the water and sanitation sector is INR 18861.1 crores and is also largely area-based at 71.1%. Clearly, India’s Smart City mission is lagging way behind its targets. Transforming 100 cities was a Rs 2 lakh crore plus overall project that should have been on its winning lap come 2020. But instead, the reality is somewhat different.

On the contrary, in Singapore, all the funding related to Smart Nation Vision is provided by the Singaporean Government. So far, no external funding was sourced. The Government has not

allocated any specific budget for the Smart Nation Vision, but the cost of initiatives are embedded in each agency. Just like any other project, if an agency is to set off a new smart city initiative, a funding proposal is required to be submitted to the Ministry of Finance for an assessment. Singapore is at the top of the list of cities that have spent the most money on smart city projects globally. According to recent research by IDC, Singapore will invest more than US$1 billion in its smart city planning. As a result, Singapore’s smart city mission has been a huge success as it was ranked the smartest city in the world, according to the IMD’s inaugural Smart City Index in 2020. To be fair, in India various bottlenecks are preventing the speedy implementation of these projects some of which include retrofitting existing infrastructure to make it smart, coordinating a three-tier government, dealing with multiple vendors for software infrastructure which takes time, and most importantly, lack of availability of a master plan or city development plan which is crucial for uniform and smooth planning and implementation of the program. Moreover, COVID-19 in 2020 has been a major cause behind the progress of this mission.

In India implementing the concept of smart cities is ideal. But due to lack of infrastructure and basic amenities, the cities might have to face a lot of hurdles. The government should try to cater to the basic issues of the nation such as implementing a proper drainage system, providing good water, sanitation and health care facilities etc as part of the smart cities mission. India’s Smart City Programme aims to revolutionize city life and improve the quality of life for India’s urban population, rich or poor. A smart city would need a smart economy, bright people, smart

organization, smart communication, smart engineering, smart transportation, a fresh environment and bright living. Nevertheless, with mass migration leading to basic issues, like water shortages and overcrowding, the rate at which these cities will be developed will be the key. Several initiatives are being headed by the Government of India to convert 100 cities into smart cities.

The financial and IT services sectors are on the main list of the government to acquire investments from leading companies such as Cisco, Synovate, Knight Frank, AECOM India etc. Some leading economies around the world have shown keen interest in India’s smart city mission and are looking forward to being a part of the development of smart cities. The major funding partners include Germany, Japan, Spain, the United States of America, France, Singapore and Sweden. There has been a recent infusion of efforts as twenty cities across three Indian states of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan are likely to have a fast-track development to train smart city planners on capacity-building and governance, reform implementation, water supply, sewerage amongst others. The proposal aims at training at least 150 official urban planners and designers and builds localized platforms and tools for well organised, predictable planning and execution of smart cities. The real challenge before the Government is to build comprehensive smart cities for all its residents, regardless of whether they are rich or poor. These smart cities would comprise the dream of every Indian to live in an urban city. Not only there will be cleaner streets but also progressive public transport and other well managed infrastructural facilities. The big challenge will be to create self-sustaining cities, which create jobs, use resources wisely and also train people. The above analysis points out certain aspects which should be put in focus in the future.

It is important to recognise and prioritise barriers linked to smart city development. This would help in better implementation of this programme and improving the sustainability factor in these kinds of programmes. Also, deep research about the dynamics of these cities should be done both theoretically and practically before putting the plans into action. Major factors which might help in implementation should be identified.

The environment should also be integrated with the development of smart cities. Factors such as landscape and geography, climate, atmospheric pollution, water resources, energy resources and green space should be kept under scope while building these cities. Today, because of global economic development, the environment is facing the brunt. However, we should understand that development is futile if we harm the environment in the process, and make the planet unlivable in the future.

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