Mr Jayant Sinha, Gurgaon is no smart city, it is an example of failed urbanisation

There seems to be serious disconnect between reality and budgetary allocation for developing smart cities. In a recent interview Jayant Sinha, Minister of state for Finance, when asked about the pittance of Rs 6,000 crore allocation for smart cities, had this to say, “There are many different ways of getting smart cities off the ground. If you look at Gurgaon, for example, and you ask how artfully and how strategically was it developed on the private side.” Gurgaon was certainly artfully developed so much so that the major business district did not have roads until very recently and that it does not have parking for thousands of cars that clog it every morning. Artfully? Yes, and it shows on top of every building with the large chimneys of diesel gensets jutting out from top of glass buildings. Artfully developed indeed, with the complete absence of public transportation between commercial areas and residential. This has lead to heavy dependence on cabs pushing up costs for companies. It has also resulted in traffic jams and this, in turn, in loss of productivity. [caption id=“attachment_2160529” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Reuters[/caption] It is so artfully developed that the city still has not connected hundreds of residential area to sewerage system. The art in this development is so obvious that global visitors see these shiny buildings and dug up streets right in front. If ever there was a failure of urban development, Gurgaon is a shiny example of it. Now, let us consider the strategic part of Gurgaon development. Neither the government nor the private sector had a strategy in developing it whatsoever. The city happened as a result of GE deciding to set up its back office here. The BPO industry that mushroomed as a result attracted several other companies, none of which followed any strategy. They just followed GE. If the honourable minister is referring to the strategy followed by the real estate developers then he must be joking. Almost every developer in the city has court cases going on with its tenants or buyers for failure to develop, deliver or hand over premises. The lack of any strategy handing over development to the private sector has created such a mess of Gurgaon that companies are exiting the city. If this is a vision of development that the government has, then we are heading towards a doomsday scenario very fast. The failure of urbanisation is the failure of the government to deliver. It is the failure of policies and it is the biggest sign of corruption. The abdication of the responsibility of the government is so clear and it is also the reason why the BJP lost the Delhi state. Now the finance ministry seems to be again pushing the envelope for development of cities to the private sector. The real estate lobby would certainly rejoice at this manna from heaven, even politicians would be happy. As the biggest corruption emanates from land its conversion and by giving it away to the private sector. Every commercial file for land conversion, building plan, completion certificate in Gurgaon used to be cleared by the Chief Ministers office. If the land rehabilitation bill has given ammunition to the opposition imagine what will be the reaction if the government was to handover the development of smart cities to the real estate lobby. Expecting that the real estate sector will develop cities that are actually liveable and smart is expecting too much. The sector does not inspire very high expectations of trust or corporate governance from its customers. The challenge is that if the government looks at a warped up model of Gurgaon where the state abdicated all responsibility for development on the private sector. Especially, at a time that the Ministry of Urban development is busy giving final touches to its urban renewal plan. After the JNNURM there has been no funds allocated for cities, even states do not consider it important enough to allocate budgets for cities. Cities fall through the cracks when it comes to planning or development. The only political party that doesn’t have this gap is the AAP which is developing urban citizens as its core. Technically, the urban renewal can be a mission for a longer term. JNNURM had a seven-year term that was extended as the budget was not exhausted. It was the first time that several cities got funds for developing urban infrastructure, hope it is not the last. The finance ministry has to keep this in mind while devising its urbanisation policies. K Yatish Rajawat is a senior journalist and policy commentator based in Delhi. He tweets @yatishrajawat