‘No place for the poor’ in India’s Smart Cities
An ambitious government plan to upgrade India’s cities risks further marginalizing poor and minority communities and hastening slum evictions, while failing to address the reasons villagers move to urban areas, campaigners said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Smart Cities Mission aims to modernize 100 cities by 2020 with highspeed internet, uninterrupted power and water supply, efficient public transport and living standards comparable to Europe.
But the $7.5 billion plan does not address the needs and rights of poor women and marginalized groups including minorities and migrants, according to a report by New Delhi-based advocacy group Housing and Land Rights Network, India (HLRN). Nearly 14 million households live in urban slums across India, with a further 3 million living on city streets. The drive for Smart Cities has already triggered evictions of people from slums and informal settlements in cities including Indore, Bhubaneswar, Delhi and Kochi without adequate compensation or alternate accommodation. Plans to spruce up central business districts and build urban rail lines are likely to displace tens of thousands more, the report said. “The premise of the ‘smart city’ as a relevant model needs a fundamental re-evaluation, given the increasing levels of exclusion, impoverishment, unemployment, homelessness, forced evictions and displacement of the urban poor in our cities,” said Shivani Chaudhry, executive director at HLRN.
Officials say India’s congested cities - 13 of which are among the 20 most polluted in the world - desperately need a makeover to improve residents’ quality of life. “The mission provides the choice to those who live in squalor to live with dignity, in a more hospitable environment with basic infrastructure,” said A A Rao, a spokesman for the housing ministry which is overseeing the plan. “In every instance, people are taken on board, and there have been no forced evictions to my knowledge,” he said. — Reuters