Urbanise, smartly

Clearances will be key to new towns on Delhi-Mumbai corridor

The concept of the smart city, planned to provide employment and high-quality services to residents, is attractive. Instead of the usual pattern of haphazard growth, smart cities provide for adequate housing, transport, power, water and sanitation. Besides, they pay due attention to energy efficiency, sustainable use of natural resources, railway connectivity and so on. The government has grandiose plans to set up such cities across 28 states. The proof of that concept depends on seven clusters along the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor, or DMIC. The DMIC connects the industrial heartland to ports on the Arabian Sea, running some 1,500 kilometres across seven states. This region contributes 43 per cent of GDP and over half of industrial production and exports. The Dedicated Freight Corridor project will provide capacity to move goods at much higher speeds. Industrial production in the DMIC is projected to expand at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13 per cent by 2020 and lead to massive employment generation. The seven smart nodes are planned to cater to populations of between 1.3 million and 2.25 million, with commensurate employment.

What of the cities themselves? The master plans of the DMIC Development Corporation, or DMICDC, have certain common concepts. Each city will be governed from a command centre where information technology will be used for the real-time monitoring of energy, public safety, water, transport and logistics. The plans are polycentric, with multiple industrial zones and city business districts. Mixed land use is encouraged. Housing will be located near industrial zones with high-access mass transit corridors, thereby reducing personal vehicle use. Renewable energy capacities will be integrated to ensure power self-sufficiency. Water demands will be met by a combination of river water, new aquifers, reservoirs, desalination and water harvesting. Wastewater and solid waste will be recycled. Environmental damage will be minimised and agricultural land conserved, with extant villages integrated into the master plan. All this will cost upwards of Rs 55,000 crore. As far as possible, required investments in infrastructure are proposed to come through the public-private partnership mode. The DMICDC projects that break-even should occur around year 13.

Given differences in state laws and differential levels of administrative efficiency in the seven states, land acquisition will take place through different modes in each node. Environmental and other statutory clearances would have to come from the Centre. These two issues - land and clearances - could be the make-or-break factors. Financing, especially private investments, will come only if these two elements fall in place - and they must. Projects like these must work if India is to undergo an orderly migration of population. Otherwise India's urban infrastructure will be overwhelmed. By 2030, over 40 per cent of Indians will live in urban clusters and contribute about 70 per cent of GDP. The sheer scale of India's internal migration dwarfs anything outside much better prepared China. Existing urban infrastructure is already stretched beyond its limit. Planned cities could provide an alternative to the miserable, under-provisioned urban clusters that are fast becoming the norm in India.