Urban innovation through policy integration: Critical perspectives from 100 smart cities mission in India

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Urban innovation through policy integration: Critical perspectives from 100 smart cities mission in India Sarbeswar Praharaj∗, Jung Hoon Han, Scott Hawken Faculty of Built Environment, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Smart cities Policy integration 100 smart cities mission Sustainable smart cities reference framework

Smart cities commentary often highlights the technological and entrepreneurial aspects of the city. But, the dimensions of local policy and politics is surprisingly little debated. Mega cities in the rapidly urbanising economies develop a plethora of urban policies and plans cultivated by various state and local agencies. These are often overlapping or conflicting and as a result do not produce desired outcomes. Prospective smart cities tend to add a new layer of plan and devise extra institutional instrument in to this already complex environment. We challenge this idea of smart cities being another stand-alone initiative and explore how integration of plans and unification of smart city visions with the overarching city development goals can better support effective urban transformation and local innovation. This research addresses the complex planning and governance mechanisms in the world's fastest growing economy – India - which has initiated an ambitious mission to transform 100 urban areas across the country into “smart cities”. The federal program involves the provision of centrally devised guidelines for smart city development. These combined with local level policy and institutional initiatives in designated smart cities in India shape a multiplicity of policies and programs. A two-level case study is presented in this paper as a critical polemic on this policy landscape. Investigation along these lines provide opportunities for identification of underlying patterns and challenges of smart city developments in India. The paper concludes with a series of recommendations for building sound smart city policy frameworks in emerging economies.

1. Introduction: why convergence of policies is critical for indian cities In the year 2015, the Government of India rolled out the ‘Smart Cities Mission’ with an aim to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life for people in 100 selected cities. Specifically the program aimed to do this by enabling local development and harnessing technology as a means to create smart solutions for citizens (Ministry of Urban Development, 2015a, 2015b). This initiative, although aspiring to execute city wide infrastructure development projects and area based renewal, does not outline how these new proposals will converge with existing master plans and city development plans. As cities are beginning to engage in smart city projects it is becoming apparent that they are looking to implement pilot projects conventionally known as ‘sandbox initiatives’ (Van Den Bergh & Viaene, 2015), focussing on a narrow scope with high visibility. While experimental sandbox initiatives are useful, these needs to be aligned with the broader city goal if the selected cities are to become ‘smart cities’. In this paper we argue against this narrow spatial focus and fragmented investment landscape

∗

(Hollands, 2008) which aims to create infrastructure for a specific area of the city or a particular section of society. We instead investigate how smart city initiatives can make a substantial difference for the whole city, including all its citizens and stakeholders, through comprehensive integration of existing policies and approaches. Integration of policy frameworks can play a significant role in giving shape to, and transforming, the urban and regional development agenda. In addition the integration of policies across different sectors and different government agencies is of vital importance to stimulating sustainable innovation at the city level (Marceau, 2008; Pinnegar, Marceau, & Randolph, 2008; Redaelli, 2011). Large cities in developing countries are burdened with a plethora of policies and development plans which are often poorly coordinated and have conflicting or overlapping visions, and thus neutral or negative impacts. For example, Bhubaneswar, the capital city of the state of Odisha in Eastern India, which is recognised as the smartest city in the country by Government of India, possesses at least 8 planning documents aimed at development of different urban sectors and infrastructure components. The execution of these plans is undertaken by different agencies at the city and state

Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Praharaj).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ccs.2017.06.004 Received 19 January 2017; Received in revised form 4 June 2017; Accepted 21 June 2017 1877-9166/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Praharaj, S., City, Culture and Society (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ccs.2017.06.004

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critical review of literature indicates that smart cities commentary has a tendency to highlight the technological aspects of a smart city, while its distinct cultural setting, governing and policy issues have not received much attention (Nam & Pardo, 2011). In fact, the system thinking approach aggressively put forward as part of the smart city policy tourism (from global north to south) efforts by technology giants such as IBM and CISCO takes for granted that institutional infrastructures are already in place. This approach fails to consider the context of most cities in the global south (e.g. urban India) where lack of services and unmanaged infrastructure systems is the norm (Gandy, 2004; Söderström, Paasche, & Klauser, 2014). Moreover, such a discourse endorses a mentality where urban planning and development affairs are projected in an apolitical matter. In the IBM's smarter city campaign, urban problems are painted as an outcome of demographic trends, climate change and public finances; but never with organisational culture, fractured policy environments or partisan politics. The disregard of the political economy of Smart Cities is a major shortcoming of current approaches. To ensure smart cities are implemented effectively in India the urban policy landscape and governing political structure must be addressed in a focused way. With the above background in mind, our research seeks answer to the following questions:

level resulting in complex political mandates. The introduction of the smart city mission in India provides an opportunity to integrate multiple plans and institutions by affirming that “integration in context to smart city is not just for technologies and information systems but for policies” (Johnson, 2008; van Winden, 2008). Van Den Bergh and Viaene rightly pointed out “the smart city is as much about cultural change as it is about adopting technology, formulating strategies, and designing structures” (Van Den Bergh & Viaene, 2015). The confusion present within the city level policy environment is a consequence of there being no central or unifying strategy for managing urbanisation and development. India, which had 7935 urban centres housing approximately 400 million populations in the year 2011, is yet to develop a country-wide urban development policy. On the contrary, the central governments approach has been sectarian and event based, rolling out schemes and programmes as a firefighting measure without any convergence of the various policies or projects. To better understand ways to transform city level policy and governing mechanisms, this paper critically examines the central government's response in tackling India's urbanisation challenges. A focus on the recent 100 smart cities initiative therefore reveals broader systematic urban policy weaknesses of the central government. This is critical as India's urban development agenda is state driven and cities in the country are highly dependent on higher levels of government for financing and overall guidance for undertaking urban development projects.

• Does the strategic policy approach adopted by Government of India

2. Background: India's grand urban challenges and sudden emergence of ‘smart city’ euphoria

•

According to the United Nations population division, the urban population of the world has grown rapidly since 1950, from 746 million to 3.9 billion in 2014. Asia is home to 53 percent of global urban population, despite its lower level of urbanisation. Both Asia and Africa, are urbanising rapidly and will host nearly 90 percent of the projected 2.5 billion world urban population increase by 2050 (United Nations, 2014). Three emerging economies—India, China and Nigeria— together are expected to account for 37 per cent of the projected growth of the world's urban population between 2014 and 2050 (Porter, 2015). As the world continues to urbanize, sustainable development challenges within cities will intensify, particularly in the emerging middle-income countries where the pace of urbanisation is fastest (World Bank, 2015). India has observed a dramatic surge of urbanisation over last several decades, taking the urban population share of the country from 17.96% in the year 1961 to 31.16% in the year 2011; and the country is expected to house half of its population in urban areas by the year 2040 (Census of India, 2011). The increasing pace of urbanisation in India has not been matched by adequate planning, sector policies, governance and infrastructure development. As a result, the performance of Indian cities across urban indicators has been sliding well below the desired standards. United Nations placed India at 135th position among 182 countries according to a ranking of the quality of life of its citizens (UNDP, 2014). Similarly in the environmental performance index, India Ranks 155 among 172 countries (Hsu et al., 2014). In 2010, McKinsey & Company rated Indian urban planning, urban finance and urban governance performance as poor; the lowest rating on a four point scale (Sankhe et al., 2010). Within India there is a growing realisation that cities hold the key for the country's future development. For example the Strategic Plan of Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India for 2011–2016 commented that “in order to ensure competitiveness of cities while offering basic services to citizens, urgent steps are required to harness the opportunity that the scale of urbanisation presents and to avoid urban decay” (Ministry of Urban Development, 2015b). Smart Cities are developed through policies and projects that support urban innovation, and the comprehensive integration of information and communication technology. Although smart city approaches have attracted the attention of the political and professional classes, a

offer a practical approach for implementing the smart cities mission that is both transformative and efficient? How can divergent policies and visions at the city level be assembled into an inclusive and integrated reference framework for smart city development in India?

3. Research methodology: a case study approach to multi-level policy analysis Analysing urban policy is a complex exercise that requires careful observations and qualitative interpretations. Due to the nature of interconnectedness between horizontal and vertical policy domains and actors, various scientific works recommend a multi stage policy analysis covering different urban sectors and institutions (Mattoni, Gugliermetti, & Bisegna, 2015; Rotmans, Kemp, & Van Asselt, 2001). We also found that the case study approach is popularly employed to deconstruct and critically appraise the effectiveness of urban policy frameworks, especially in the context of smart and digital cities. Authors such as Bakici have adopted city level case study models for investigating smart city policy mechanisms to reveal benefits and challenges of smart city developments (Bakici, Almirall, & Wareham, 2013). In contrast Alizadeh favoured a two way approach while investigating urban digital strategies covering both national and local policy agendas (Alizadeh, 2015). In analysing policy and governing frameworks concerning urban development and specifically smart cities this research combines the two above approaches. A two stage case study reviews both 1.) the central government level and then 2.) the municipal level. The first case is the ‘Smart Cities Mission’ initiated by Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India. We investigated this initiative as the primary objective of this research was to decode the overall strategic outline of the central government looking to spearhead development of 100 smart cities. As part of this assessment we critically reviewed major policy documents prepared by Government of India over the last decade with special emphasis on Smart Cities Mission Statement & Guidelines. We support our observations by citing multiple literature which commented on contemporary urban scenarios in India and its preparedness to undertake transformative smart cities projects. The second stage of analysis was focused on building a comprehensive understanding of the local level urban planning, policy and institutional capacity in Indian cities through reference to Bhubaneswar city. The city was selected considering its elevation as the smartest city in the 2

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Table 1 Deconstruct of the innovative approach of Government of India's Smart Cities Mission. Business as Usual Approaches before Smart Cities Mission Vision and strategy Project Design

Executing Agency

Networking and Capacity Building

selection biased towards big cities • City physical infrastructure development prioritised • Large-scale of mechanism for participatory planning and design • Lack from convergence between initiatives were • Benefits unexplored level parastatal agencies played a key role in execution • State • Limited Public-private partnership project development of formal platforms for learning from Global • Lack experiences building initiatives were limited to lecture based • Capacity training

Innovative Approach adopted during Smart Cities Mission performance based city selection is introduced • Competitive is shifted towards developing lighthouse small-scale projects • Focus citizen engagement through ICT is emphasised • Smart City Advisory Forum is set up for uniting the view of • Smart stakeholders Pooled finance used through convergence between complimentary • schemes City SPV is set up as an executive corporate body • Smart is empowered to directly enter PPP arrangements with • SPV developers city-to-city bilateral knowledge exchange agreements signed • Formal • 18plansglobal firms were engaged to help cities prepare smart city master • A virtual knowledge sharing platform ‘Smartnet’ is established

clear definition of the term could have certainly helped cities in better conceptualising smart city developments. We found that the key emphasis of this mission is on promoting competitiveness and innovative spirit among cities to stimulate urban transformation. This is bolstered by the “India Smart Cities Challenge”a competition designed to identify cities' competence for smart city development based on objective criteria's and the merit of smart city proposals. The funding from Ministry of Urban Development for undertaking smart cities projects was dependent on the ranking of cities and their capacities. This is a new model of meritocracy based reform linked urban investment unlike the earlier schemes of Government of India that has traditionally followed large city centric investment policy. One can link this nature of competitive urban renewal programme with EU smart city initiatives which emphasised the measurement of regional competitiveness (Annoni & Dijkstra, 2010) and the ranking of cities before initiating smart city projects (Giffinger et al., 2007). Apart from looking at these critical political affairs, we have explored the Mission's overall design and its standings in comparison to India's earlier urban development programmes. Our research finds the approach of the mission to integrate both conventional and innovative mechanisms for smart city development. Whereas the government addressed the objective and scope of the mission and laid out the vertical organisational and monitoring mechanism for the program in relation to earlier initiatives of the government of India, the city level institutional reorganisation and innovative knowledge networking structures are distinctive new innovations. These two dimensions of the smart city mission are elaborated in Table 1. A three-tier monitoring framework is operational which oversee the mission activities. At the highest level, Central Apex Committee is formed to develop the policy and guidelines of the mission, review and approve smart city proposals and take decisions regarding fund release depending on progress by cities. This Apex Committee apart from having individuals from administrative ranks is represented by sector experts and key stakeholders from city and states. At the next stage, State level Steering Committee is formed consisting of administrative and political leadership from various state government departments and city corporations. This committee is entrusted with responsibilities such as nominating cities to participate in the smart cities mission, review the feasibility of smart city proposals and release states share of funds as and when required by cities while implementing pilot projects. At the city level a Smart City Advisory Forum is established which enable collaboration among various stakeholders and review suggestions from citizens and various actors to prioritise projects in a participatory manner. The critical aspect that emerges from our research is the nature of excessive control by Government of India and the states over programme implementation and sanctioning of funds as outlined in the

country by Government of India and we were keen to investigate the robustness of this city's policy and governing mechanism. As part of this local level assessment we reviewed all the plans and policies operational in the city and its institutional settings that are party to the smart city design. Following this two stage analysis our research explores opportunities of urban policy integration by conceptualising a smart city policy reference framework covering multiple sectors and layers of government supporting the spirit of smart cities. We conclude by generalising the study outcomes to larger theoretical foundation and highlight key lessons for innovative smart city development in the rapidly urbanising global south. 4. Smart Cities Mission in India: Deconstructing the Central Government's policy approach Our review of the Smart Cities Mission indicates that the initial idea of building smart cities was expressed in the pre-election manifesto of Bhartiya Janta Party led by India's current Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The manifesto states “We will initiate building 100 new cities; enabled with the latest in technology and infrastructure - adhering to concepts like sustainability, walk to work etc. and focused on specialized domains” (Bharatiya Janata Party, 2014). But this idea of new smart cities evolved and in fact changed drastically on August 2014 when the newly elected government asked the state governments to identify existing cities for development under the Smart City Mission. This clearly marked a shift in focus from Green-field development to brown-field development and the orientation moved from construction of ‘100 new smart cities’ to ‘making existing cities smart’ (Bhattacharya, Rathi, Patro, & Tepa, 2015). The key message that emerges from the discussion above is that Smart Cities Mission in India although sets up as a strategic response to the country's urbanisation challenges, is highly influenced by the political economy. To unravel the approach of India's Smart Cities Mission we must first examine how the term ‘smart city’ is defined by Government of India. The mission guideline (Ministry of Urban Development, 2015a, 2015b) in an attempt to define the general concept stated that there is no universally accepted definition of Smart City as the meaning is interpreted differently by people, cities and countries depending on their level of development and future aspirations. The government's assertion that there is no one-way of defining smart cities can be interpreted as a positive pluralistic approach. However, in practice evades critical questions and leaves key concepts undeveloped. This lack of a broad but clear definition is a major drawback for the development of smart cities in India. Although recently urban development in India has increasingly promoted the role of local governments, it is still a top driven agenda. Cities therefore rely heavily on the federal government for clarity on critical issues. In a matter such as smart cities, which is a relatively new phenomenon, and perceived by local authorities as a complex subject, a 3

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and education, tertiary services etc. The strategic development plans projected that the future city economy is likely to concentrate on knowledge based industries and technology centric services (The Communicties Group International and AECOM, 2006). Bhubaneswar city has rapidly grown since its inception. The city where as in the year 1961 had a population of 38,211 with approximately 760 population per sq. Km, hosted 0.89 million citizens with a density around 6558 population per sq. Km in the year 2011. The population growth rate of the city has consistently outstripped many of the metro cities with recorded 34.51 percent growth in the last decade of 2001–2011. In Comparison, the nearest metropolitan city of Kolkata has shown a meagre 6.87 percent growth during the same period, highlighting the fast pace of urbanisation in the administrative capital of Odisha.

mission guidelines. This has been a historical dispute featured in multiple research concerning India's urban management challenges that indicate involvement of higher levels of government negatively affect the process of empowerment of local bodies and leads to delays in project execution (Pancholi, 2014). The hierarchical archaic forms of monitoring in urban development as observed in case of this mission is a continuation with earlier programmes of Government of India and there is a failure to incorporate lessons from earlier failures. Ministry of Urban Development which launched the ‘Smart Cities Mission’ on 25 June 2015, concurrently announced ‘Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT)’ focussing on infrastructure upgradation across 500 cities in India. On the very same day ‘Housing for All’ mission was rolled out by Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation with an aim to supply affordable housing for poor in 305 cities by 2022. Ministry of Culture on the other hand has announced ‘National Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY)’ for preservation and revitalisation of 12 identified Cities with heritage character. These mega schemes are accompanied by schemes such as Smart port development initiative’, ‘Clean Indian Mission’, ‘Digital India’, ‘Skill India’ etc. undertaken by various ministries within central government. Most of the 100 Smart Cities are entrusted with implementing these schemes simultaneously. While there is a strong complementarity between these initiatives, there is apprehension about occurrence of multiple planning documents with different visions emerging from these programmes. We observed that the smart cities mission guideline published by the government of India did not have a clear framework or outline regarding how these different initiatives will be coordinated for common good of the city.

5.2. Effective plans and proposals Sustainable smart cities rely heavily on clear strategic plans and convergence mechanism among policies and interventions. Multiple static plans with conflicting goals are a barrier to development of smart cities in global south which are governed by multiple agencies at the city level (Kundu, 2014; Niti Ayog and CSTEP, 2015). In this section, a critical review of various plans and proposals functional at the city level have been carried out to identify the vision of these plans, scope and sectoral orientation. We have also attempted to identify if there are any integration mechanisms in place to help achieve common development objectives. Our research finds that there are at least 8 different plans (Table 2) simultaneously being executed in the city of Bhubaneswar, all aiming at development of the city, either holistically, or focussed on a sector. We have grouped them in three different clusters according to their sectoral and institutional basis. The first sets of plans are those which have a legal mandate and therefore are a statutory requirement. The Comprehensive Development Plan and Perspective Plan – VISION 2030 for Bhubaneswar – Cuttack Urban Complex are the two plans which have legal basis of existence and therefore the enforcement is mandatory. These plans are prepared according to the guidelines provided in Odisha Development Authority Act, 1982, which sets the rule for planned land and infrastructure development of all cities in the state. Although the plans were prepared under the guidance of the Housing and Urban Development Department of the state, Bhubaneswar Development Authority-the local level planning agency is entrusted with the execution of the proposals. We identified another group of plans which were conceived through various programmes and schemes initiated by Government of India, but have no legal standings. The City Development Plan of Bhubaneswar is such a plan prepared under centrally sponsored ‘Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission’ to develop a vision and future strategy for infrastructure development in the city. Simultaneously, City Sanitation Plan and Slum Free City Plan were also prepared to develop a blue print for development of sanitation infrastructure and slum upgradation respectively. Whereas City Sanitation Plan was an outcome of the National Urban Sanitation Policy of the Government of India, Slum Free City Plan was conceived as part of the Rajiv Awas Yojana-another central programme aiming at eradicating informal settlements in the cities. Smart City Plan is the latest addition into this list emerging out of the Smart Cities Mission initiated by Ministry of Urban Development at the centre. With increasing environmental consciousness and cognisance of climate and disaster risks, a third category of plans are apparent. The City Disaster Management Plan and Environmental Management Plan of Bhubaneswar are such examples. The City Disaster Management Plan of Bhubaneswar was an outcome of USAID – UNDP – Government of India partnership Project on Climate Risk Management (CRM) in Urban Areas and is being jointly implemented by Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation and Odisha State Disaster Management Authority. On the

5. Measuring urban policy and institutional capacity in potential smart cities: A local view This research has identified Bhubaneswar city in India as a case study to provide an understanding about the policy and planning approach of the urban local bodies in India and their readiness to become smart cities. Our basis for city selection was the outcome of the ‘Smart City Challenge’ organised by Government of India to rank cities on a range of indicators and robustness of smart city proposals. Among the 20 smart cities that have won the first round of this challenge, Bhubaneswar came out on top, which meant the city was recognised as the smartest city in India. Moreover, Bhubaneswar has won international acclaim, including from the Canadian Institute of Planners in the year 2015, which acknowledged the city's smart city proposal as the best entry under the category ‘International Development’. By selecting Bhubaneswar as an example, we were keen to focus on how best practice policy and governing mechanism can be improved and to understand if Bhubaneswar's smart city proposal aligned and integrated with city's overall development goals. 5.1. Context Analysis of spatial (Angelidou, 2014), demographic (Alizadeh, 2015) and competitive profile (Hu, Blakely, & Zhou, 2013; Morais & Camanho, 2011) of a city is an important component of critical policy research concerning smart cities. With an aim to establish the context of this investigation we present the key demographic and socio-economic profile and location characteristics of the city. The origin and evolution of this urban centre is analysed for a general understanding. Although the historical reference of the city dates to the 6th Century BC, the modern city of Bhubaneswar is an outcome of postindependence new town movement. The city we see today was master planned by the German architect Otto Koenigsberger in 1948 as a new capital for the state of Odisha in Eastern India (Kalia, 1997). While serving as an administrative city Bhubaneswar has diversified its functions over the years. Presently the city offers a diverse range of opportunities in various sectors such as trade and commerce, IT, health 4

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Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation and Odisha State Disaster Management Authority

Odisha Pollution Control Board

Special Purpose Vehicle (50:50 equity share between state and city)

Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation

Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation

Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation

Bhubaneswar Development Authority

Housing and Urban Development Department, Government of Orissa

other hand, Environmental Management Plan for the city was prepared by the State Pollution Control Board inspired by the success of similar studies in Kanpur and Agra of Uttar Pradesh state facing similar environmental pollution challenges. These plans do not have statutory relevance and lack continued financial assistance from state or central government schemes and therefore remain as standalone initiatives with limited outreach and impact. A critical review of various operational plans for Bhubaneswar city suggests that there are overlaps and contestations in visions, jurisdictions of the plans, institutional mechanism and various projects and proposals identified in the plans. In stark contrast to the Comprehensive Development Plan which emphasises on upgrading quality of life in the city and strengthening of existing traditional industries and heritage zones, the Smart City Plan promotes technology and knowledge based enterprises. Even within plans for related sectors we found major conflicts emerging; while the City Disaster Management Plan perceives and recommends the need for adopting a regional approach for battle against climate related disasters, the Environmental Management Plan promotes area based interventions in some specific parts of the city. Even when dealing with slums and informal settlements, the city's strategy sounds openly contradictory. In the Comprehensive Development Plan a clear strategy was laid down to integrate slums and poor communities within existing urban area. But, the Slum Free City Plan in context of the pilot Rajiv Awas Yojana scheme in Bhubaneshwar proposed a relocation site 15 km away from the city facing strong community opposition. We observed the action area and city boundary as identified in the plans to be varied across planning and policy documents. Whereas the Comprehensive Development Plan was prepared for Bhubaneswar Development Plan area covering 419.1 sq. Kms, the City Development Plan addressed an area of 233 sq. Km. leaving the peri urban areas and its population outside. This has limited the adequacy of City Development Plans and has led to haphazard growth on the cities boundary (Kundu, 2014). This nature of inconsistent spatial demarcation in the plans was a result of multiple institutional existence in the city. Bhubaneswar Development Authority which implements the Comprehensive Development Plan reigns over the area of 419.1 sq. Km, while the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation provides services in 186 Sq. km of the development plan area. Over and above all this, the Housing and Urban Development Department of the State has drafted a Perspective Plan over an area of 720 sq. Km. for strategic development of the city and other urban and rural centres surrounding it. The simultaneous existence and functioning of multiple plans imposed on different spatial limits result in a complex hierarchy and overlapping of institutional mandates, making implementation and enforcement of plans difficult (Niti Ayog and CSTEP, 2015). Our research found several overlaps in the proposals and identified projects across development plans. For example, the need and strategy for development and conservation of heritage zones such as Bindu Sagar Lake was first identified in the Comprehensive Development Plan. The same proposal was repeated in the City Development Plan as well as Environmental Management Plan; making it apparent that these plans borrow each other's ideas and in a sense, are parallel to each other. Similarly, it is difficult to comprehend why similar infrastructure proposals on water supply, sewerage, drainage and sanitation were presented across Comprehensive Development Plan, City Development Plan and City Sanitation Plan and whether the preparation of these different plans was justified. The critical issue that emerges from these discussions indicate that the plans prepared by different agencies at the city and state level are generally considered as standalone plans and do not interact with each other. This environment is shaped by lack of convergence of programmes and schemes at the central level resulting in multiple plans with divergent aims at the city level. Therefore, there is a growing need to integrate policies and plans for better development outcomes.

City Disaster Management Plan

Environmental plans largely supported by international donor agencies

Environmental Management plan

City Sanitation plan (CSP)

Smart City Plan

To develop sanitation infrastructure along with generating awareness in the community and encouraging public private partnerships in the sector. To upgrade/redevelop/relocate existing slums and prevent future slum formations To Develop Bhubaneswar as a transit oriented city following livable and Eco-city principles with a strong economic centre attracting technology and knowledge based enterprises To assess the environmental stress of the city from study of land use plan, pollution sources and propose an action plan for area based interventions Adopt a regional strategy to reduce disaster risks by enhancing resilience to disasters and climate change and undertake scientific mitigation activities

City Development Plan (CDP) Plans emerging from Centrally sponsored schemes, but have no legal standings

Slum free city plan

To envision Cuttack and Bhubaneswar as twin cities playing a complimentary role and developing the Urban Complex to a world class centre To regulate and guide urban growth in the region focussing on improving quality of life and creating economic opportunities To develop a vision and future strategy for infrastructure development in the city Perspective Plan – VISION 2030 for Bhubaneswar – Cuttack Urban Complex Comprehensive development plan Legally binding plans prepared by the State agencies

Bhubaneswar-Cuttack Urban Complex comprising the two major urban centres over an area of 720 sq. Km. Bhubaneswar development plan area covering 419.1 sq. Kms. Bhubaneswar development area of 233 sq. Km. including the municipal corporation and its peripheries Bhubaneswar development area of 233 sq. Km. including the municipal corporation and its peripheries Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation covering 186 Sq.km Bhubaneswar development area of 233 sq. Km. including the municipal corporation and its peripheries Bhubaneswar development area of 233 sq. Km. including the municipal corporation and its peripheries Bhubaneswar development area of 233 sq. Km. including the municipal corporation and its peripheries

Goal Planning Document Categories

Table 2 A list of planning documents prepared for Bhubaneswar city, their goals, influence area and executing authority.

Action area

Implementing authority

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permanent urban planner in its executive wing. These findings indicate that presently city government in Bhubaneswar is not well equipped with trained manpower to effectively plan and manage city systems.

5.3. Governance In research concerning urban planning, it is important to clarify the structure of governance, various levels within the system and how different actors relate to one another and eventually what services are provided by different institutions (Alawadhi & Scholl, 2016; Alizadeh, 2015). Our objective here is to identify the level of synergy in service delivery between multiple institutions operating at the local level and if there are any functional overlaps. Apart from service delivery we have also mapped out how different institutions are vested with execution of development plans as identified in the earlier thematic analysis of effective plans and proposals. The institutional mechanism of Bhubaneswar represents an ideal model demonstrating the nature of complexity in urban governance facing Indian cities. As per the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act of India all the city level functions were suggested to be transferred to the municipal corporation. But in case of the city of Bhubaneswar we found prominence of parastatal agencies controlled by the State government which plans, designs and operate bulk of the critical infrastructure including transport, water supply, sewerage and storm water drainage systems. There is also greater stake of the state in matters to preparation of various development plans and environmental guidelines that are enforced in the city. Ultimately what seem to be left to be managed by the Municipal Corporation are commonplace activities like sweeping and street light maintenance. This highlights a sorry state of affairs in concern to upholding the decentralisation agenda of the constitution and indicates how the urban local bodies represented by people with popular electoral mandates are sidelined by state level agencies run by unaccountable bureaucratic machinery. Our analysis of the governance mechanism in the city reveal the nature of overlaps in responsibilities across institutions. We found the responsibility of preparation and execution of various development plans lies with four different organisations. Whereas the State departments including the Urban Development and Housing Department and Directorate of Town Planning has greater role in the planning process, the execution is left to the city level development authority and Municipal Corporation. Higher degree of overlaps is evident in planning and maintenance of infrastructure services. For example, in sanitation sector, design approval goes through three different organisations namely Municipal Corporation, Odisha Water Supply and sewerage Board and Public Health Engineering Organisation. Similarly, transport sector activities are looked over by three different organisations. While the State's road and building department undertakes construction of major roads in the city, the municipal corporation is entrusted with maintenance of those roads and on the other hand Bhubaneswar-Puri Road Transport Service Limited (BPTSL) is formed as a special purpose vehicle to operate city bus services and manage bus shelters, depots and other associate infrastructure. These instances highlight the loose mechanism and overlays of authorities in urban operations and present suitable justification for dismal infrastructure status in Indian cities. This research also looked at the capacity of the urban local body in terms of its overall human resource availability especially within critical departments in the Municipal Corporation. About 30.7% of the sanctioned posts across 14 departments within Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation were found vacant. This trend of high vacancy rate across city governments is cited as a major reason behind poor governance efficiency in cities across India (Praharaj et al., 2013). Moreover, although the Odisha Municipal Corporation Act, 2003 laid down the policy that Municipal Corporations should perform all activities related to urban planning (Government of Odisha, 2003), the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation have yet not formed any specific departments for performing such functions. Among a total regular staff of 1137 personnel, only 1 trained urban planner is employed in the corporation to oversee planning functions in the city inhabited by 0.89 million population. Bhubaneswar Development Authority which is entrusted with guided land development in the city and its vicinity also has only 1

5.4. Smart city plan and emerging concerns The broader context, planning and organisational setting is followed by a content analysis of the actual smart city plan prepared for the city and approved by Government of India. As part of this analysis we first identify the central vision of this document and its linkages with already operating plans. Then a detailed review is done to assess the projects identified for execution and if they have a city-wide appeal or focus on a specific part of the city or a specific sector. Finally an overview of emerging conflicts in vision and governance arrangement is provided for future policy actions (Bhattacharya et al., 2015). The Smart City Plan for Bhubaneswar city (Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation, 2016) was released on December 2015 as a prerequisite for participation in the second stage of the Smart City Challenge organised by Government of India. The plan was primarily prepared by an external consultant with insights from various city and state level institutions, stakeholders and citizen feedbacks. The document consists of 5 different sections covering city profile, area based proposals, pan-city intervention, implementation mechanism and financial plan. The plan identifies urban history and the city's heritage character to be a major strength on which future developments should be perceived. This is quite natural as Bhubaneswar is famously known as ‘City of Temples’ due to its many religious establishments located throughout the urban area. Despite the town openly aspiring to be a UNESCO world heritage city the vision outlined in the smart city proposal promotes transit oriented city development principles and a strengthened regional economic centre with information technology infrastructure; completely negating the cultural heritage aspects. Moreover, the proposal indicates urban sprawl and leapfrog low density development in the peri-urban areas to be a major weakness for the city which needs urgent attention. This means that under the area based proposal the city could have identified a peripheral district for guided compact land development as a model for future urbanisation. But, on the contrary, the plan proposed area based development of the town centre district which is already well developed and one of the better serviced areas in the city. These findings highlight some of the central problems of smart city conceptualisation where smart city proposals look to target development of affluent areas and identify easy to implement projects as future solutions, evading complex issues facing rapidly urbanising societies. Citizen engagement and people led project identification have become a celebrated model for smart cities in India. The Smart City Plan of Bhubaneswar, while outlining the process of project prioritization, highlighted public voting as a key parameter. In the case of both the area-based-development and the pan-city proposal, the proposal which received the highest number of votes among 7 alternatives were selected for execution. The smart city plan of Bhubaneswar bolstered that 26% of the city population voted in the consultation process and substantial number of votes were recorded on the website and through social media engagements. This opens-up several critical issues regarding the popular public participation process in a socio-political environment that is increasingly internet oriented. The Census of India in the year 2011 estimated that an average 16% of the households in the city of Bhubaneswar are connected to the internet. Undoubtedly these social strata that are connected to the internet are among the affluent economic class and a high majority of citizens are yet to enjoy such digital infrastructure to be able to participate in such digital dialogues. We found the reflection of this digital divide in the areas prioritised for development. The two districts that received highest votes were the town centre district (26%) and Info city district (22%). Both of these areas in the city have high concentration of skilled workforce and serviced industries which meant that people living or 6

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Fig. 1. Proposed transformation in institutional and planning framework for sustainable smart cities development in India.

6. Conclusions: towards integrated policy reference framework for smart cities

working in these clusters were able to voice their preferences over the rest of the city. On the contrary districts which covers slums and which are situated in peri urban areas naturally received a very low share of votes due to low level of digital penetration and little political awareness. These findings point to serious loopholes in the process of voting for project prioritization adopted by emerging smart cities. There is an increasing risk of inequality in physical and infrastructure development in cities as a consequence of such approaches. The Smart City Plan of Bhubaneswar proposed the formation of a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to be operated as a Public Limited Company to preside over all the planning and execution work proposed in the plan. Interestingly, the SPV will undertake project management activities through engagement of project management consultancy and there is little provision of in-house technical staff. Although the Smart City SPV model of governance is an invention, the project management framework appears to be similar to earlier programmes like the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. While the municipal corporation face challenges of power inequity and a shortage of trained manpower, this approach of consultant dependent project execution and additional institutional presence is set to further weaken urban local bodies’ standings. Moreover, although the Smart City Plan proposed devolution of decision making powers and functions to the SPV, it falls short of giving complete autonomy to the company. The plan suggests that parastatal organisations managing water supply, drainage and sewerage infrastructure will continue to exist, but they will have to enter into an agreement with the SPV ensuring cooperation. There is ambiguity on how a newly formed SPV and its leadership will establish coordination mechanism with several city and state level institutions to deliver large scale infrastructure and renewal projects within given 5 years of operation timeframe. Overall, we found rather than achieving the desired integration and simplification of governance mechanism with empowering Municipal Corporation, the formation of a Smart City SPV marketed as a transformative model can indeed further complicate and fracture the urban management framework in aspiring smart cities.

One of the key features of India's urban development policy is that it runs through systems of deregulation, unmapping and exceptionalism (Roy, 2009). Without any concrete urban development policy in place the country follows a model of “Instant urbanism” (Datta, 2015) enabled by fast policy (Peck, 2002) targeted for short-term goals. This method often leads to formulation of multiple schemes and programmes initiated by various central, state and local government organisations targeting specific sectors and components of urban development. There is often a lack of synergy (Garcia, Eizaguirre, & Pradel, 2015; Mackintosh, 1992) and convergence (Niti Ayog and CSTEP, 2015) among interventions which fails to realise the added value offered by coordination of resources and from the joint efforts of agencies. This research critically analysed the multiplicity of institutional and policy actors and plans in context to smart cities mission in India which promises to transform urban landscapes in the rapidly urbanising country. We found that although there is a consensus regarding the need for devolution of powers to urban local bodies, the cities are often caught between directives of central government and strong presence of state level parastatal organisations. The results also indicate that various planning and strategic documents prepared by state and city level agencies lacks integration and often present overlapped or conflicting visions. These structural problems have serious consequences for the efficient management of urban resources and infrastructure. The results from this study indicate that the central and state governments which provides the bulk of development funds has greater control in project approval, monitoring and funds release. It became apparent from the research findings that although a smart city special purpose vehicle (SPV) is formed at the municipal level to oversee project implementation, they do not have adequate manpower or requisite legal jurisdiction to undertake them. The SPV's therefore will have to depend upon existing state level agencies for utilities planning and execution of infrastructure projects for key areas such as transport, water, energy etc. Managing these complex relationships requires effective coordination 7

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mechanisms and further simplification of governance procedures. To tackle these issues, we propose a coordinated policy reference framework for institutional integration and streamlined urban planning mechanism in Indian cities (see Fig. 1). Indian cities need to realign its vertically spaced institutional setting and replace with horizontally linked sections within Municipal Corporation. We strongly recommend that the state level urban development agencies devolve functions of local utility planning and management to municipal governments. The state should rather focus on setting state level policies, benchmarking of cities performance and create enabling environment for public private partnerships. The power structure must be transferred from unaccountable state level parastatal agencies to democratically elected City Mayor, its Council and supportive Executive Authority headed by Commissioner. The Smart Cities SPV rather than becoming a parallel corporate agency best be brought directly under the authority of Municipal Corporation to ensure greater accountability, coordination and inclusiveness in urban governance. It is high time that India revisits its commitment to the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act and enforce the decentralisation agenda in its true spirit. India needs a consistent strategy to strengthen its urban local bodies and it cannot be left for political economic compulsions. While it is a positive step by the current Narendra Modi government to infuse corporate culture in to urban agencies to enhance operational efficiency, it must not undermine the authority and sanctity of democratically elected Municipal Local Institutions. Indian cities need to keep working towards breaking silos among institutions and bring the host of local actors under the authority of Municipal Corporations for greater good of its citizens. India needs to make urban planning a core, respected and more integrated function. This function should be a bottom up exercise of developing unified visions for the city and designing sector specific interventions to support urban progress. Rather than imposing cities to prepare plans with strikingly different visions, the state driven urban initiatives must look to support local innovation. Integration of planning has immense potential to bring synergy between projects and save resources for weakly capacitated Indian cities. At present the smart cities plan in Indian cities are developed as a standalone document highly loaded with digital technology solutions. If it to make significant impact on the urban landscape and the lives of the people these smart city plans needs to be designed around the core long-term visions of the city and be part of an integrated development plan (see Fig. 1). This will ensure that the power of technology is harnessed as an enabling tool for increased efficiency in service delivery to citizens. Smart cities plan is not only about the re-inventing of wheel and developing new projects tailored for technology application. In case of India, where urban authorities sit over large amount of unmanaged and non-profit making assets, rather opportunities should be explored how smart technology can be applied to existing infrastructure and services in making them more reliable and efficient. This research establishes the fact that for India's 100 smart cities mission to succeed there is an urgent need for policy innovation to counter existing negative trends. The study outcomes indicate that smart city projects and digital transformations must look to explore technology adaptation within an established policy framework and not as an isolated venture. We therefore conclude by theorizing that realigning policy, planning and institutional frameworks are critical for successful urban innovations in rapidly urbanising cities of the global south. References Alawadhi, S., & Scholl, H. (2016). Smart Governance: A cross-case analysis of smart city initiatives. 2016 49th Hawaii international conference on system sciences (pp. 2953– 2963). Hawaii: IEEE. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/HICSS.2016.370. Alizadeh, T. (2015). A policy analysis of digital strategies: Brisbane vs. Vancouver Tooran Alizadeh. International Journal of Knowledge-Based Development, 6(2). Angelidou, M. (2014). Smart city policies: A spatial approach. Cities, 41, S3–S11. http://

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