In the recent announcements of the various projects and nation building activities by Modi’s government it is clearly seen that the vision and mission is whole heartedly put into actions, this is a big boon for our state of Meghalaya particularly with these many schemes. It is overwhelming that our Shillong City features in the smart city umbrella as it is seen in the list released by the Government of India. We may have heard of many entities correlated with the word smart and to see it we have many words involved smart phones, smart solutions, smart technologies. Linguistically we get it what is the meaning of being smart, but what is this SMART CITY and what is that smartness of a city which defines it to be a smart city am sure a lay man would not understand, public may get bits and bites of the smart city concept. This article wishes to give a comprehensive view of what defines a city as a smart city.
To begin with let us look what is a smart city, as such the definition of a smart city may varies in many ways and there is no such formal definition to define a smart city because there are many aspects which are involved in defining it for example the infrastructure, the convenience, the services that a common man would want, the level of aspirations that public would expect to receive, so the definition may varies in different scenario. It is clearly assume that when we talk something about smart what comes to our perception is something digital something different than the normal way of functioning and to mention Digital India programme will also be a part of that smart city component.
Narrowing the perception as to what could be the definition from our Indian Scenario, there are some components that would define that smartness of a city and they are good water supply, assured electricity supply, solid waste management, public mobility and transportation, good housing facilities affordable to the public, Connectivity and digitalization, smart and good governance, sustainable environment and development, public security and safety, Health and education.
However getting that smart city tag would not be an easy task and it would involve our cooperation in a way to behave to act smartly so to say smart people who care who wish the city to be an example city to others. The important part of the entire component is the public participation to be precise a smart public participation in making and bringing in the qualities of smartness. Let us cite an example in the recent list of the most cleanest city in India, Shillong city or the pine city as it is said ranks way below, Mysore city ranks in the top, so the question is why and how, the reason is public take initiative in a smart way, smart thinking and constructive thinking and that is where they achieved the feat.
The whole smart city concept it does not mean that the entire planning process would be a Government centric it would also involves the participation of the public in the process. We have to emphasize more on getting a smart comprehensive participation on a win win side.
Getting that smart city tag would also involve a challenge and what are those challenges. For the first year hundred smart cities would participate for getting the funds for smart city and the city with the best idea and proposal would receive a complete funding and the other cities which do not qualify for the fund would be given a chance to participate for the coming year. The entire process would be for a three consecutive cycles years starting with 2015 and ending in 2018.
Now do we see the challenges ahead of us it is a really tough task to mention there will be the best brains the best mind in other cities competing for that funding, where we stand, what do we do how we do it to bring that Smart city in our own lovely pine city. We have a golden opportunity ahead of us and the city itself has already gain many marks which are well acclaimed by many people around the world. On a positive and a good note let us work participate smartly to bring in that tag of a smart city hand in hand with the government and add one more credit to our beautiful Shillong city.
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