Why Smart Cities Have Turned Into Sinking Streets?

Why Smart Cities Have Turned Into Sinking Streets

The Smart Cities Mission (SCM), unveiled in 2015 with much fanfare, aimed to revolutionize the Indian urban landscape. Yet, ten years on, recurring urban floods have exposed the hollowness of its vision — selective beautification prevails over resilient city planning, and digital dashboards fail to address submerged streets. The SCM’s fundamental flaw lies in prioritizing optics over function, mirroring a broader neglect of environmental sustainability in India’s urban policy.

The Institutional Landscape: Smart Cities Without Sustainability

The SCM envisioned transforming 100 cities into technological and citizen-centric hubs, aligning with complementary initiatives like AMRUT and Swachh Bharat Mission. With ₹1.64 lakh crore sanctioned across over 8,000 projects, it showcased integrated command centers, app-based services, and retrofitted infrastructure in urban pockets. However, critical issues like flood-resilient stormwater management systems and low-income housing were relegated to secondary priorities.

Notably, the institutional framework raised red flags. Cities established Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs), essentially corporate entities bypassing municipal bodies. While SPVs offered project-specific efficiency, they undermined democratic accountability, detaching flood-prone communities from planning processes. Area-based development, a core SCM methodology that refurbished specific city zones, systematically benefited elite districts while leaving informal settlements vulnerable.

Furthermore, AMRUT — intended to address sewerage, water supply, and green spaces — disbursed ₹2.9 lakh crore in its second phase but struggled with integration. Siloed planning ensured complementarities remained theoretical at best. This institutional fragmentation turned what could have been collaborative resilience-building into isolated, superficial upgrades.

The Argument: Evidence Behind Selective Smartness

Several data points starkly highlight the SCM's misguided priorities. Consider Bengaluru’s urban flooding in 2022: despite integrating digital dashboards worth crores, unplanned growth clogged its century-old lakes, exacerbating monsoon floods. The Comptroller and Auditor General’s report from 2024 criticized SCM’s lack of compliance with Climate Smart Cities Assessment Framework (CSCAF) flood metrics, particularly the absence of permeable surfaces or green infrastructure.

Delhi offers another example. Floods in July 2023 revealed systemic failures—stormwater drains designed for 1960s populations collapsed under urban density that had trebled since. AMRUT’s allocations for drainage upgrades across 500 cities pales in comparison to the ₹20,000 crore spent annually on metro expansions under SCM. The misplaced funding priorities directly contribute to urban paralysis during monsoons.

Equally troubling is the neglect of satellite cities. While China’s Shenzhen grew into a vibrant metropolitan hub due to purpose-built housing and business-friendly policies, India sidelined greenfield opportunities under SCM. Industrial corridors like DMIC prioritized manufacturing but ignored spillover housing needs, leaving Tier-II growth centers like Coimbatore crippled by informal settlements.

The Counter-Narrative: Is Smart Infrastructure Misunderstood?

Defenders argue SCM's technological focus tackles long-term problems. Integrated Command and Control Centres (ICCCs), lauded globally, manage traffic, crime, and disaster response efficiently. Additionally, digitizing street infrastructure—via SCADA stormwater monitoring—prepares cities for remote interventions during crises. Proponents claim urban flooding stems from decades of neglect rather than shortfalls of a single initiative.

While plausible, this argument ignores structural issues. Case studies from Chennai reveal ICCCs failed during November 2021 floods due to inadequate real-time data from the city’s stormwater systems. Similarly, digitized functions can optimize existing infrastructure, but in cities lacking robust physical drainage systems, technological inputs merely provide stopgap solutions. SCM’s selective investments only deepen the pre-existing gaps rather than enabling systemic overhaul.

International Perspective: Learning from Shenzhen

India’s Smart Cities Mission carries a troubling resemblance to Germany’s urban model from the mid-20th century, which focused heavily on retrofitting major cities rather than creating new satellite hubs. This approach contrasts sharply with China’s Shenzhen experiment, where industrial policy seamlessly aligned with urban planning. Between 1980-2010, Shenzhen grew from a fishing village into a megacity with purpose-built flood-resistant housing, walkable neighborhoods, and underground reservoirs.

The Chinese model emphasizes greenfield cities, coupled with fiscal incentives like reduced property taxes in their nascent stages to attract residents. India could emulate this approach by shifting Smart Cities Mission’s focus from metro-centric projects to new city creation, aided by blended finance mechanisms.

Assessment: Where Do We Go From Here?

SCM’s pitfalls reflect broader misalignments within Indian urban governance—corporate SPVs fail to build trust; siloed initiatives collapse under inter-ministerial disorganization; fiscal allocations prioritize digital optics over drainage sustainability. Realigning SCM requires course correction:

• Citizen-centric development: Bring municipal bodies directly into planning through participatory budgeting.
• Sustainability first: Deploy mixed-use greenfield cities with climate-conscious designs integrated from inception.
• Fiscal decentralization: Assign property tax revenue directly to local urban resilience or housing initiatives.

Without these structural pivots, Smart Cities will forever battle floods—a grim irony for urban models supposedly built with the future in mind.

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