[NEW DELHI] Indias development agenda and its priority programmes and

policies are in alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that
the UN General Assembly is expected to come up with in 2015.

Poverty eradication, gender equality, affordable and reliable energy access for
all; inclusive, safe, resilient cities and sustainable management of water and
waste are some of the overarching goals proposed under the SDGs. These have
consonance with three of Indias priority programmes namely, the 100 Smart
Cities, the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and Make in India.

The 100 Smart Cities programme will enable evolution of safe, resilient and
sustainable cities through implementation of green retrofit, redevelopments and
new developments; while the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is a pan-India cleanliness
drive meant to accomplish sanitation for all and is a policy driver to practice
sustainable solid waste management. The Make in India programme is designed
to foster innovation, enhance skill development and transform India into a
manufacturers dream destination. This, in turn, is expected to yield sustained
and inclusive economic growth and industrialisation, another key determinant of
sustainable development.

Smart Cities

Will these objectives be achieved in a desirable time frame with sustained

results? The 100 Smart Cities programme holds promise, but key to success will
be effective implementation and availability of finances. The government of India
plans to provide seed capital, but identified cities must access suitable expertise
and financing to accomplish the activities. The likely government contribution to
each identified smart city shall be about US$162.7 million (INR10 billion) over 10year-period, which means that these cities have to rely on innovative financing
and equity participation from other stakeholders in order to realise the dream of
a smart city.

Indias 13th Finance Commission has estimated that the collection efficiency for
property taxes, a key revenue source, stands at a low 37 per cent. This
phenomenon has precluded cities from providing even the most basic public
services to their citizens. For instance, 40 per cent of Hyderabads population
lacks access to direct water supply connections, and 50 per cent of households in
Bangalore do not have sewerage connections [1]. So, in a way the cities have to
meet ever-increasing infrastructure gaps first. It is also true that provision for
smartness in terms of better communication and connectivity, smart distribution,
monitoring and metering among other measures can help cities to be more
efficient, reduce wastage and help bridge infrastructure gaps. For example,

smart grids can reduce transmission and distribution losses, improve conversion
efficiency and thus make electricity distribution more efficient and reliable.

The 100 Smart Cities programme holds promise, but key to success will be
effective implementation and availability of finances

Mili Majumdar
The other two programmes, namely Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and Make in India,
can collectively contribute to achievement of goals of the smart cities initiative.
Thus, integration of schemes, priorities and funding are necessary. Needless to
mention, all these programme outputs will collectively feed into the SDG
objective. Habitats and buildings are two key components of cities that need
attention. With 70 per cent of commercial building stock yet to come up, the
ever-increasing demand for energy in buildings needs to be contained.

You might also like

Q&A: Putting a price on deaths from vehicle pollution
Q&A: Rajendra Pachauri on Delhi development summit
Tracking urban Indias worsening air quality
Delhis waste site story
South Asia Analysis: Quest for more liveable cities
Energy access as millennium development goal
Asian cities head global list of flood vulnerability
Pollution cloud threatens Asia

Electricity demand

The electricity demand of the building sector in urban areas shall rise to about
237,000 gigawatt hours by 2020, which is about three times the 20102011
levels. The good part of the story is that nearly 200 million megawatt hours per
annum can be saved if all new buildings are efficient and a minimum of 10 per
cent of the existing stock is made efficient through retrofits. This translates into
42,000 megawatts of savings in installed capacity of power plants. Though the
Energy Conservation Building Code has been in place since 2007, the market is
still not geared to embrace it fully.

GRIHA, the national green building rating system developed by TERI with the
active cooperation from the ministry of new and renewable energy, mandates
compliance with the Energy Conservation Building Code. Limited providers and
lack of indigenous products and services, and missing awareness push up the
costs and makes implementation a real challenge. The Make in India programme
should be able to give specific incentives to green product manufacturing.

The challenges in implementation are many, but the willingness of the

government to achieve results on ground through a multi-stakeholder
participation is commendable. The Delhi Sustainable Development Summit being
organised by TERI between 57 February, will deliberate these issues.

Mili Majumdar is the Director of Sustainable Habitat Division, TERI, New Delhi.
The views in this column are her own