India's Smart Cities Mission: Questions of Sustainability & Maintenance

India’s Smart Cities Mission: A Smart Foundation Undone by Shortsighted Governance

The Smart Cities Mission (SCM), launched with ambitious promises in 2015, was hailed as India’s paradigm shift in urban governance. However, as the mission concluded in March 2025, what remains starkly evident is a systemic failure to address sustainability and maintenance. Severe urban flooding in key smart cities such as Bengaluru and Pune serves as a reminder that even the sleekest smartphone fails without an enduring operating system. In trying to leap technologically into the future, the Mission has left several foundational governance issues virtually untouched. The fallout? Short-term gains, long-term vulnerabilities.

The Unstable Foundations of Smart Cities

The SCM's operational model was as peculiar as it was ambitious. Envisioning transformative infrastructural and digital upgrades in 100 cities, it created Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) that bypassed existing Urban Local Bodies (ULBs). These SPVs were granted significant decision-making powers akin to private companies, diluting accountability mechanisms mandated in the 74th Constitutional Amendment, which aimed to strengthen local self-governance.

The funding model further compounded governance concerns. With ₹48,000 crore allocated as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme, the expectation was that states and ULBs would mobilize matching contributions. Additional funding was to be sourced through public-private partnerships (PPPs) and municipal bonds. However, the Economic Survey 2023 highlighted a mere trickle of municipal bonds floated, while private sector investments largely failed to materialize. A poorly defined operational framework, amplified reliance on SPVs, and inadequate capacity-building in local institutions have crippled accountability and continuity in many projects.

Where the Numbers Don’t Add Up

The figures are instructive but sobering: of the ₹1.67 lakh crore worth of projects sanctioned under the SCM, only 93% were completed by the scheme’s closure. In the remaining 7%, unfinished construction, stalled innovations, and budget overruns dominate the landscape. Take, for example, the ₹800-crore Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC), designed to revolutionize urban management through real-time monitoring of water supply, traffic, and waste management. Analysis of post-implementation reports by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) reveals that only 60% of the ICCCs operate at optimal capacity due to gaps in digital infrastructure and ineffective coordination between the SPVs, ULBs, and state governments.

Moreover, the sustainability challenge is glaringly evident. Bengaluru was awash in water in August 2022, despite multi-crore provisions under the SCM for stormwater drainage. Pune’s Rs. 200-crore redevelopment of the Mula-Mutha Riverfront failed to account for upstream and downstream impacts, leading to severe flooding during the monsoons. Maintenance protocols remain glaringly absent — a critique echoed in NITI Aayog’s 2021 study, which emphasized the dire lack of institutionalized asset management mechanisms under the SCM framework.

The Cost of Ignoring Governance Gaps

The governance disconnect threatens to erode the SCM’s long-term impact. Circumventing local elected bodies has weakened public accountability, creating opaque decision-making processes. The SPV model, touted as a tool for streamlining execution, is inherently flawed when it operates without community participation, capacity-building in ULBs, or alignment with state urban development plans.

Furthermore, the heavy reliance on PPPs was aspirational but impractical. The private sector, wary of long payback periods and uncertain returns, has shied away from many projects. Balancing public welfare with profit motives remains a fundamental challenge. The lack of a cohesive national strategy, as flagged by the India Smart Cities Fellow Programme, meant cities were left to reinvent the wheel, leading to inefficiency and duplication of efforts.

Counterpoint: Did We Expect Too Much Too Soon?

Critics of SCM critics argue that a decade-long project cannot resolve the structural legacy of urban neglect across Indian cities. With urbanization pressing ahead at unprecedented rates, even modest improvements — such as urban transport apps or better waste management systems — should be seen as incremental wins. Moreover, some success stories, like Indore’s benchmark-setting waste management systems, suggest that the model can work when local leadership is proactive. But the question remains: are these exceptions or the rule?

There’s also the counterargument that urban flooding is not a failure of the SCM per se, but of multilateral planning at state and national levels. The SCM cannot singlehandedly fix interjurisdictional governance issues, a point mooted by the 15th Finance Commission's assessment of urban fiscal health. Furthermore, some argue that the immediate challenge is not maintenance but sustained investment — and the SCM's extension could rectify uncompleted projects and cement long-term plans.

Learning from Singapore: An Integrated Urban Model

If India intends to truly leverage the potential of "smart urbanization," Singapore’s model offers critical lessons. The city-state’s Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) serves as a central planning body that integrates land use, resource management, and infrastructure development into a unified urban plan. Unlike India’s fragmented SPVs, Singapore relies on robust public infrastructure finance via statutory boards (e.g., PUB for utilities), supported by transparent public oversight and community consultations. Importantly, maintenance is central to its urban model, supported by predictive analytics to preempt asset degradation. It echoes what the SCM promised but could not structurally deliver.

What Next for India's Urban Future?

The SCM, for all its ambition, has exposed the unsustainability of top-down urban reforms that fail to embed local governance and maintenance capabilities. First, India must restore ULBs as the fulcrum of urban planning, leveraging the 74th Amendment to institutionalize public participation and build governance capacity. Second, a separate Urban Maintenance and Renewal Fund, akin to Japan’s Infrastructure Maintenance Scheme, could provide ULBs with dedicated resources to ensure asset longevity. Third, integrating climate resilience into all future projects — right from design to execution — must no longer remain a rhetorical afterthought.

The promise of a "smart" urban India cannot rest on infrastructure alone; it needs governance that endures, adapts, and learns. Failing that, SCM risks becoming yet another chapter in India’s long history of vacuous urban experiments.

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