Smart cities summit in Nagpur

DEVENDRA FADNAVIS

The public bodies, officials and smart city solutions providers should interact on smart cities. I call on stakeholders to come together and share their knowledge and experiences.

Policy makers in India didn't favour urbanisation, but it happened because it was inevitable. In this unplanned process, villages are deserted and cities have grown into chaotic sprawls. PM Modi's direction is to look at urbanisation as an opportunity for the development of the common person. Smart cities are not just for the affluent. Transparency and efficiency, which are the aims of smart cities, will help poor get better services, by way of accessibility and affordability.

Out of three services (water, power and waste) only a handful pay for water. Because of lack of capital, there is no expansion in coverage, and focus on services is on those who pay. The rates are high and increasing because people grab water (or steal) while others pay. Smart cities should lower costs so that even middle class will afford it. That is a relief for many who want to keep within the law.

Smart cities should be citizen-centric. This means it must change the quality of life for all or most of the people. If people don't accept, or recognise, the benefits, they will be sceptical believing it will only benefit the wealthy. Progress can not be made without public support. So I suggest public participation is essential. Now our planners, mayors, elected representatives, all must engage beforehand - find out what people want and suggest what is good for them - to get their collective wisdom. I assure you talks lead to good outcomes. I advise using IT platforms for this outreach.

We should be building an IT backbone for the city - and an enterprise solution - that can leverage all the technology solutions and reach the people fast. For example, in Nagpur, we laid 100 km of fibre cable. We are now able to leverage any technology, speed up the implementation and results will also show up fast. In Mumbai, we have installed 6000 cameras connected with fibre. With smart traffic management, traffic offences are caught 24/7 - not just when police are around - and billed directly to their mobiles. It should inspire people to be more law abiding. In Mumbai, we have installed 500 hot spots (soon 1200), making Mumbai India's first wifi city. This will be leveraged for multiple uses.

Smart cities must offer sustainable solutions. In Mumbai, we will build 200 km of metro-rail. We can't keep building for road users as this is never-ending. At the same time, it is not about any one type of public transport. So, we integrated 4 modes of transport - metro, mono, suburban and bus. Then we developed an app (smart solution) that allows planning across multi-modes, - travel and wait times and distances are given - and then we will issue one ticket to cover the whole journey!! This is why people will prefer public transport. Nagpur has a good sustainable solution for treating solid and liquid waste. Old water is recycled and used in power plants, while fresh water is left for people. We will take this to 4-5 other cities.

Employment generation is also important for our smart cities mission. We want skills oriented opportunities (they may not be high-level skills) and then we will create those skill-sets in youth. These will not be government jobs but will be based on a sustainable financial model. As I said, people want efficiency and transparency. We believe in innovation and how technology evolution will lower costs. This has happened in solar power and that has reduced power tariffs. We value that technology brings transparency. It is after all neutral to gender, caste, class and religion.

NITIN GADKARI

Nagpur is the 1st in India to provide 24x7 drinking water. In slums, this is 16-18 hours. While we congratulate the administration, we need much better auditing (monitoring) and make admins responsible. In my visit to Nagpur, we found tanks were leaking and wasting so much water. I approved 50 large cement concrete tanks, new pipelines and a computer system to monitor water levels. The computer ensures equal distribution of water to all areas.

5 years ago, we sold our sewage water to Nagpur electricity corp. Whilst we saved govt water, we also worked on converting wastewater to methane or bio-CNG. From our waste, we ran 50 city buses.

Waste to wealth should be part of any smart cities mission. Our experience has been that alternative fuels are low cost, clean and promote import substitution. I learnt that London had great experience of electric buses. But at Rs 2.5 crore per bus, it was unaffordable. Li-ion batteries in them were Rs 55 lakh!! Back home, I was able to get ISRO to develop proven Li-ion cell batteries in 6 months. I presented it to PM, saying this can save Rs 6-7 lakh crore India spent on importing fuel. Electricity is clean, surplus and produced entirely within India. Amount spend on power traction is a fraction spent on fossil fuels (1/10th). So, now we are promoting electric vehicles (e-rickshaws, buses, cars, bikes). Within a short while, we will start 20-100 electric taxis in Nagpur on an experimental basis.

The lithium-ion battery is the key technology. ISRO said they would restrict licence to only PSU Bhel. I made them give it to all private players that wanted it. The competition will reduce the cost, eg. airfare from Nagpur to Mumbai was Rs 8000, now because of choice, it is Rs 2200.

In the upcoming waterways in the Ganges, we are promoting LNG as a clean fuel. Dual fuel (diesel and LNG) engines for barges will now be produced in India through a JV of Indian auto firm and a foreign company.

Nagpur has air-conditioned buses that run on bio-ethanol. There is a shortage of molasses, so govt has decided to make second gen ethanol from biomass, bagasse, cotton straw, wheat straw, rice straw, bamboo, etc. Bamboo is plentiful in NE. Rice straw is plentiful and farmers are burning it, causing pollution. Rural people, incl tribals will benefit if we promote this.

Smart cities should recycle liquid waste. In the Ganges where we have pollution from 60 cities, we had to spend Rs 60,000 crore on treatment plants. By using Hybrid annuity model, our upfront cost is just Rs 24,000 crore. To pay for the annuity, we are able to sell dirty water. For example, Indian Oil Corp is going to clean and use water from all 80 MMD of Mathura. Dirty water can be recycled at IR plants at depots in Kanpur and Lucknow, and there are 20+ thermal plants to sell to.

For solid waste, lots of experiments are going on. In Delhi, we are using segregated waste (plastic, metal, glass) in highways, and other waste can be converted into organic manure and methane, and further into bio-CNG or power.

Nagpur is 1st metro to get 75% power from solar. We are taking good designs from international architects. This will be done for upcoming IR stations as well.

Centre wants multi-modal hubs in smart cities. Railways, airport and bus station should be at the same place. Govt has budgeted to build one each in Nagpur and Varanasi. We need a connection between metro and commercial areas. Nagpur can get a pilot project for the Metrino (150 capacity "skybuses") and develop commercial areas along the way. Smart cities need money. This will give Rs 1000 crore to the corporation. Our politicians are taking the initiative to improve Nagpur infra. Nagpur is getting brilliant new infra thanks to Centre and State govt, eg. flyovers, metro rail, wonderful stations, bypass, expressways.