Pune is the eighth largest city in India in terms of both population and GDP. Driven by rapid urbanization, Greater Pune’s population will grow from 5.5 mn to 7.7 mn by 2030, putting severe strain on core urban infrastructure and impacting the liveability quotient of the city. Smart City Mission is a critical imperative for Pune to ensure that it becomes a Liveable and sustainable city in spite of severe resource pressure and population growth. A set of smart initiatives, driven by “less is more” philosophy, will be the cornerstone of this transformation. Pune Smart City Proposal is built on 5 important pillars:

• Understanding critical imperatives based on Pune city profile
• Confirming imperatives through the voice of the citizens
• Long term vision and strategic plan for Pune
• Prioritised pan city initiatives for Pune
• Driving model local area development

Understanding critical imperatives based on Pune city profile
Pune already has several strengths, which the smart city initiative has built on, specifically Strong human capital, Strong delivery on core urban services, Well-functioning municipal council, Established business centre, Participatory democracy, with active corporate involvement, Natural resources, Vibrant culture, Good connectivity

However, there are also several areas where some urgent intervention is recognized and solutions suggested in the proposal - Challenge around congestion and traffic speed, Inadequate public transportation system, Inequitable distribution on water, Housing, Environment and sustainability, Lack of model urban forms

Confirming imperatives through the voice of the citizens
Pune Municipality strongly believes in citizen participation to identify vision, issues, goals and solutions for Smart City Mission. It, therefore, ran one of the most comprehensive visioning exercise under smart city mission across 9 phases to confirm the findings from desk review, and to ensure that it was working in the areas that citizens wanted. The total numbers of votes, ideas, inputs etc received from Pune citizen’s sums up to 35 lakhs.

Pune’s engagement strategy to get best results had five highlights:

Structured five-phase approach for pan-city: a) Envision (17–28 September): create vision, identify top issues; b) Diagnose (28 September–12 October): Identify goals within priority sectors; c) Co-create (13–23 October): specific solutions for prioritized goals; d) Refine (23–28 October): Refinement with citizens’ inputs in mini-labs; and e) Share (15 November–15 December): Final set of solutions shared for inputs

Structured four-phase approach for local area development (LAD): a) Explore (citizen surveys); b) Syndicate (through public representatives); c) Learn (citizen consultations) and Design (urban planner interaction)

Use of “Five-S” principle: a) Speed: Tight 100-day process; b) Scale: Outreach to 50 percent citizens; c) Structure: Phased approach; d) Solutioning: Crowd-sourcing to identify solutions; and e) Social audit: Citizen syndication

Create ecosystem of partners: team of 400 members comprising PMC, corporates, NGOs, citizen groups, industry associations, consulting firms, schools, colleges, media and eminent citizens was formed

24x7 war room to drive citizen engagement with five cells: a) Campaign management; b) Response management; c) Analytics; d) Creative management; and e) Documentation management

• Long Term Vision and Strategic Plan for Pune
• Based on SWOT analysis and citizen inputs, Pune City came up with the following vision statement under Smart City Mission:

Liveable, lovable Pune!

With a vibrant cultural heritage, a strong human capital and strong business environment as key strengths, Pune aspires to become one of the most liveable cities in India by making its infrastructure world class & future proof, and by transforming its neighbourhoods on key dimensions of liveability like mixed use, open spaces and sustainable energy usage.

The key themes coming out of vision are listed below:

Build on vibrant culture heritage, strong human capital and strong business environment Making Pune’s infrastructure world class & future proof Solving the challenge around transportation Equitable, 24x7 water across Pune Taking other core infrastructure from “good to great

• Prioritised pan city initiatives for Pune
• Increase public transport usage
• Reduce congestion through adaptive traffic control
• Ensure equitable 150 lpcd water to 100%

Driving model local area development
In addition to solving for core infrastructure, there are several key dimensions of liveability like mixed use, open spaces and sustainable energy usage that Pune will need to adopt to become a future city. Specifically, some of the aspirations here would be:

• Solving for basic infrastructure for 100% of citizens in the region
• Incorporating smart features around energy, transport, water, sewage, solid waste and other sectors
• Driving social transformation in low income areas
• Creating a vibrant job zone
• Extensive engagement of citizens
• Visible improvement in areas through underground wiring, cobbled street, etc

The strategic plan is to pilot it in the local area, and then replicate in the entire Pune. Pune believes that these measures will help in achieving the results and realizing the aspirations of a true smart city.

(Source: punesmartcity.in)

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