Strategy for
New India @ 75
94
•
Achieving desired service delivery levels
: Funds
for the provisioning of basic services and
infrastructure are accessed from complementary
missions, such as the Atal Mission for
Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation
(AMRUT),
Swachh Bharat Mission
(SBM), and
Housing for All (HFA). There is a need for a
framework that mandates measurable outputs
and outcomes for all capital investments in
infrastructure and services in cities. These
outputs and outcomes should be predened
and measured at quarterly intervals. The
present liveability assessment underway will
provide the baseline for measurement on 73
indicators.
•
Digital transformation roadmap
: Conventionally,
cities have been using information technology
and communication (ICT) in three ways: (1)
use a single application to address burning
problems, say, waste collection, and then
add more applications as per the needs and
priorities of the city; (2) build infrastructure and
add services, and (3) experiment with a number
of applications without having a long-term or
denitive vision in place.
The conventional ways ignore the value hidden
in human interactions – among citizens, with
the city’s infrastructure (e.g. roads, bridges,
parks) and the environment. These interactions
contain data and information and digital
technology has the potential to recognize and
capture the hidden value in their interactions.
To harness internet connectivity and its
various applications in governance and service
delivery, cities need to put in place a digital
transformation roadmap across both hard
infrastructure and software applications. A
digital transformation roadmap would recognize
and capture these interactions and the whole
becomes greater than the sum of its parts once
the information that ows in the “systems of
systems” is captured.
Additionally, the digital transformation roadmap
would also build on the considerable work
done in cities on geographic information
systems (GIS) and apply these for geo-locating,
mapping and publishing public assets in the
city such as parks, playgrounds, public toilets,
bus stops, streetlights, manholes, water and
sewerage lines, storm water drains, power
lines, etc., and linking these to grievance
redressal, participatory budgeting, transparent
works management, and contractor payments.
Municipal acts need to provide for a digital
transformation roadmap for ULBs as a
mandatory policy document, like spatial plans.
This will also help build data observatories for
multiple uses, including citizen engagement.
Equity
•
Inclusive development
: Cities must ensure that
the urban poor and slum dwellers including
recent migrants can avail of city services and
subsidies and are nancially included through
the
Jan Dhan Yojana
. A dedicated benchmark
could be considered to measure if benets
reach the targeted poor. Cities should dedicate
a single-window facility for the urban poor
to access basic services such as water supply,
drainage and sewerage, and affordable
housing in the form of dormitory and rental
housing. Urban poor communities and slums,
benetted by area-based development (ABD)
or pan city proposal (PCP) solutions, should be
mapped in conjunction with improvements in
parameters such as access to public assets and
reducing service decit including in the areas of
education and health.