Review of smart city components: an assessment of implementation of ares based development strategy, Gwalior/

Abstract

One-third of the population in India can be catalogued as an urbanite. Today, a significant share of people moves to the cities contributing to urbanization and this fact cannot be disputed. The Government of India has been trying to resolve the issues of urban India that have been there for as long as late 1970s with various schemes like Mega city, JNNURM and Smart city being the latest. Smart Cities Mission (SCM) was set in motion since June 2015 to enable improved living conditions and to achieve higher economic growth in 100 existing cities. Total INR of 48,000 crore (US$ 7.4 billion) was decided to be consumed in the next 5 years (2015-16 to 2019-20).The mission constitutes of two approaches: Area-based development where in city renewal, retrofitting or greenfield development is carried out in delineated area of the city and Pan city promoting digital solutions in larger part of the city. To ensure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated, and successful implementation of Smart City Proposal is taken care of, it is of vital importance to have a methodical framework for both the area-based and PAN city approach. This study, however, is limited to the examination of ABD in delineated part of the city of Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh. The research explores SC implementation in Gwalior that’s undergoing a smart transformation currently with its various Projects. Out of all the modules of Smart city proposal, the modules like- Heritage & Culture Module(M1), Infrastructure Module(M3), Mobility Module(M4), Social & Recreation Development Module(M5), Economy Module(M7) and Sustainability Module(M8) were studied in detail in this study. During examination of the projects in Gwalior, the research also explores the perception of public in the city Smart city projects are considered to be a method for performing Service delivery. Hence SERVQUAL scores have been used to determine the level of services delivery in various modules of ABD strategy at Gwalior. This research will be useful to 1) cities (in developed and developing nations) who are implementing SC projects now, by providing a framework to systematically examine the strategy for successful project implementation; and 2) communities/institutions (especially in developing nations) proposing Smart City initiatives by helping them focus on components, goals, and enablers of a Smart City.