Smart Cities Or Stressed Cities? Planning Challenges In A Hyper-Urbanizing India

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23 June 2025

Smart Cities Or Stressed Cities? Planning Challenges In A Hyper-Urbanizing India

Introduction

We all know the perennial flaws plaguing our cities. Perhaps a great fraction of us has even made peace with the enduring nature of them. Yet, the eponymous “Smart Cities Mission”, coming at the heels of the success of Swachha Bharat Abhyan, had filled for some time a vestige of hope within all urban dwellers. A scheme whereby the Government not only acknowledged the lacunae in the very fabric of how Indian Cities are run and how outdated they are in their infrastructure but also set a meticulous plan with a heavily layered structure into which it would sink over Rs. 48,000 Crores. The dream, however crashed and burned for reasons that all policy observers are all too familiar with.

India’s ramshackle economic engines are constantly under increasing stress, with a rapidly increasing urban population in a fast-paced world. In this article, we shall briefly analyse the problems that led to the demise of this ambitious mission, the continuing problems it sought to tackle and their potential solutions.

The Smart Cities Mission- Paradox of India’s Urban Dreams

We won’t exhaustively examine every aspect of this mission, however, as a whole it was meant to be an endeavour which would actively look for ways in which technology and modern infrastructure could be interwoven with the existing one in such a way that new vitality could be breathed into ever aspect of living within that particular city. From traffic management, crime, logistics, bureaucratic chokeholds among others.

Process of Selection

First, the State Government gets the option to nominate a certain number of predetermined cities from within their jurisdiction.

Then, the Municipalities of the cities must create a Smart City Proposal which includes Area-Based Development plans and Finance Models. It is then deliberated by a Panel of Experts from Ministry of Urban Development wherein high-scoring cities are finally selected.

Finally, Special Purpose Vehicles are set up in the cities which are essentially private limited companies with a Board of Directors and CEO (usually an IAS officer) which has complete control over funding and prepares, approves, implements and maintains development programs and solutions under the Smart Cities Mission.

The Flaws

Initial `nominations being a prerogative of the State Government allows for a possibility of political bias. Municipalities ruled by favourable parties might get preference and result in the overlooking of cities that might need it more.

However, a more major impediment of this mission was the structuring of the organisation itself. Which is highly centralised and corporate style entity that blends public (State + ULB) and private participation. The Urban Local Body itself is relegated to the position of a minor stakeholder. Thus, elected mayors, councillors and municipal officials had minimal say in key decisions. SPVs operated like private companies, often ignoring political process.
Moreover, given how SPVs also had the assigned duty of ‘maintaining’ what they establish as well, the elected Municipality would essentially be signing over, for decades possibly, sweeping powers over their cities.

Thus, not only did it violate the principles of the 74^th amendment but also made the cities highly unwilling to be a participant in such a mission. As a result, many important cities like that of Mumbai withdrew from the mission.

Those that did partake faced multiple project delays and misalignments as SPVs, ULBs and State Agencies often worked in silos with functions that overlapped and therefore, plans that clashed with each other’s.

Result

Consequently, these administrative hassles resulted in only 22 out of 100 cities that were able to finish all projects commissioned under the mission. While 70% of the 7,800 projects were completed, the promise wasn’t supposed to be merely a numeric one but that of a citywide transformation. Many completed projects were small-scale or low-impact eg, LED streetlights, beautification of parks or small e-governance modules. Necessary changes but hardly transformational and without any meaningful change to citizens’ urban experience.

In cities like Surat and Pune, where local political will and alignment between SPV and ULB existed, the mission enjoyed far more success. They were among the top cities in fund utilization efficiency with Surat being particularly successful at leveraging private investment and convergence with other schemes. Thus, showing how integration of Local Governments generates improved outcomes because of the greater political will.

The Lessons

No Municipality can be expected to willingly hand over core functions. It is politically suicidal and in the long-term gives rise to a central despotism. Moreover, district level concerns can’t be heard at the Centre, and is therefore an inefficient way of trying to give citizens a superior urban life. Such a policy requirement makes it undesirable for ULBs from the very beginning, thus making it difficult to execute.

A majority of funds in SCM went to mobility and sanitation projects such as smart roads (around 3,000 projects directed towards them). An impressive initiative, but one that only developed specific areas under their Area Based Developments approach, this overlooked core issues like water, affordable housing and drainage.

Perhaps recognising the political risks of a scheme seen as elitist, the government launched AMRUT to focus on delivering better basic services across cities. While this shift merits credit, the programme largely adopted the same centralised, top-down model as the Smart Cities Mission, with inadequate local government or resident input. As a result, even upgraded infrastructure struggles to reach its full potential, and citizens find it harder to raise concerns or shape solutions.

So, what must change? First, India must prioritise integrated citywide planning over fragmented area-based development. Cities cannot function as islands of excellence surrounded by neglect. Additionally, Urban resilience and sustainability would have to be at the core of the future schemes.
The first step towards this is capacity building is to ensure a certain degree of bureaucratic competence. NITI Ayog revealed a shortage of over 12,000 town planner positions in state, town and country planning departments. This lack of personnel, absence of multidisciplinary teams and non-requirement of a town planning degree qualification for specialist roles have precipitated the flawed growth of Indian cities which no amount of technology can bridge.

Achieving this would make it easier to offload services and functions in a way that allows a truly decentralised local governance to take root. Only in such a framework, as seen in cities like Indore, can urban centres truly rise to the standards that their economic significance demands.

Conclusion

The Smart Cities Mission was born from a bold ambition, to reshape India’s urban future. Its outcomes remind us that no amount of technology, funding, or grand design can substitute for thoughtful, inclusive, and well-coordinated planning. The next chapter of India’s urban journey faces the certainty of an increasing weight of hyper-urbanisation.
It must learn from these lessons to create cities that are not just entitled ‘smart’, but are actually wise in how they serve their citizens.

Written by Vatsal Chhawchharia,
Symbiosis Law School, Pune

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