“I would rather earn 1% off 100 people’s efforts than 100% of my own efforts, that is what makes me smart.” … John D. Rockefeller
“Sometimes what looks intelligence to you is just common sense for someone smarter than you.” … Amit Kalantri
Amit is a young Indian Magician, Management Trainer & Author, while the other person is first Billionaire of USA & probably owned half of urban USA land then, Rockefeller & similarity of their above quotes is they are referring to Smartness, a unique characteristic of livings, not just humans! Though we the humans may consider ourselves as most intelligent species which of late I always doubt about looking the way our rulers which are chosen (read as elected by us only) are behaving & this is applicable to entire world! Obviously how our country & our city (Pune, which lese) will be behind when it’s the subject of smartness, a characteristic for which most Punekars are proud of themselves, right? Ok, enough of sarcasm as a news went un -noticed in the financial turmoil causes around the globe (reason another smart ruler) & it was Smar City Mission & has been shut down as well Smart City Company (or something, what difference it makes any way) also has been closed by the Grand Mai Baap Govt (because Mai Baap Govt is our State Govt). All projects under smart city (mission I won’t use here after, space & time saving, lol) will be handed over to the respective local bodies, which are PMC & PCMC i.e. for Pune city & Pimpri Chinchwad, respectively!
Well, most citizens wouldn’t have even read it, few who would have read it wouldn’t have understood what it means is there are some fools (like the one who is writing this piece), who read the news about closing the Smart City thing, understood it & wondered was it alive, any ways! But before coming to the news of shutting down Smart City, let's know what was it in the first place & for that I think we must define or understand the definition of the term Smart, is what I feel. Personally speaking I don’t think Smartness is a characteristic applicable to any dead or non-living objects, may it be AC, Car, or a City because by me it’s an attitude to live the life or let’s say to deal with the life, which is only possible for living things! I have seen advertisements of Smart AC or Smart Car & all they can offer you some features but on their own an AC can do things for you or a Car can’t take you to your destination with comforts which you want, not even Tesla! Now we have AI which again our Govt thinks is like Master Key to all our problems but again, all these are tools invented by some smart minds & finally it’s the users & makers combinedly decides the smartness of a product, which in our case, is a city! If you are still confused then let me explain you further, ask yourself what is your definition of smartness or say you meet many people, use many equipments every day, who you call smart as smartness is something very individual term, someone’s smartness can be someone’s foolishness or over-smartness also. So, when we generalize a subject like city smart then it’s the feature it offers to us to make our life comfortable, with minimum efforts! I hope the last few lines clarifies the smart city in a nut-shell as on that only the reading ahead has been built!
So, while deciding the smartness of a city, then in simple words that city is built by planners, run by civic bodies & lived by its citizens & combinedly how each of these performs their duties is what decides whether the city is smart or not! And let me frankly tell you if we are considering the comfort of the citizens as the scale of smartness then Pune is far above in comparison to many cities/ towns of this State & country. I know many Punekars (most) will smirk & say, what else can be expected from a builder but to praise the city (read as system/ pmc etc) so your business is promoted as well you are praising the govt so to be in their good books & I don’t blame them. One is, because most Punekars are never happy about any good thing which has happened to them & another is most Punekars (native ones) have rarely travelled & stayed for a longer period in cities in our country for any reason. And the outcome is, when it comes to comparison of the lifestyle which a city offers to its citizens then most Punkears end up comparing Pune with Dubai, Singapore, Bogota (plz google) & such. But we are forgetting, Pune is in India & we have limited resources as well, smartness is not just about some apps or metro but about the systems & the way citizens use them. If you don’t believe me then go & stay any district place or capitol of any State in India, barring Mumbai or Bengaluru & then you will realize no city not even capitals of most States don’t even come near to Pune in lifestyle comforts this city offers & Pune is not a capitol of our state, mind it! Right from environment to roads, to water to electricity to public transport, things are much better here & this is the reason right from education institutes to IT cos’ to Auto giants to FMCG giants like Unilever, all of them preferring Pune region as their favourite destination for investment & expansion because they believe in comfort of life this region/city offers to its citizens!
But this doesn’t mean we are perfect (rather far away from perfect) as one aspect of smartness is with whom you compare yourself & that's the weakness of Pune as we often end up considering ourselves best as others in the race are far behind in the smartness race. And that’s why it’s important to analyse what Smart City Mission has actually done for this city & unfortunately keeping all respect for the mission & people involved in it, its failure for the city & by the citizens also! If you remember, at the start of the mission some six/ seven years back (2017-18) on all the major locations of Pune’s roads there were stylish kiosks with digital displays making people feel they are in Singapore or such a city. These kiosks were to offer interaction facility to the citizens about everything related to their day to day needs & mores. For e.g. you can pay your taxes here, you can get information about city’s infrastructure, you can check your property tax & the way its calculated, you can get PMPML (local public transport) travel pass here & even its supposed to be connected to other govt agencies such as MSEDCL (MSEB) & you were to avail their services also from these kiosks & it’s been one important step in Smart City Mission, but! But, few years back scene was, these kiosks have become dump yards & even shelter for homeless & beggars & now they have been removed from the city streets, this is just one story about what happened to smart city mission in Pune. There have been many other such failure stories, right from BRTS (Plz google) to garbage collection to public toilets nothing has taken shape or come into reality. There were display boards of information about air pollution index as well there were supposed to be development of an app by which you can locate essential destinations in the city, such as petrol pump or restaurant but that app is there while no updating has been made eventually most of these initiatives already died even before shutting of Smart City Mission has been declared by the Grand Mai Baap govt, is my subject of sharing!
Ok, we all know SCM is a failure but what went wrong, is we must study or say discuss & share (I know, it’s no use, yet) if we want to avoid the next such failure, I am doing it for my own learnings, so this sharing. First & foremost SCM failed on one major aspect smartness is in knowing what we want to achieve & for that we need data & the fact is we the Indians (I am deliberately counting all of us in it) are too bad when its collection or storage of right data as we don’t respect the power of data in the first place! I said right data because if we check any person’s cell phone, its gallery is full with useless selfies & forwards & photos & clips but when it comes to even get any address or number he has to open Google, as there is data but wrong data & this is why Google beat others as its respects right data & stores in right way! Smartness starts from our cell phone storage & if we can handle our own data how we can expect our city (read as PMC & all) to do it for us, is my question to all citizens! Outcome was we neither knew the basic things like population of this city which we want to serve smartly, so how we were going to understand how much water it needs, how many busses it needs, how many public toilets we have & how many more we want to build & all such questions about the city! Today also, ask this basic question to any authority or even organizations of professionals in the city, what is the actual & floating population of the city, nobody has the right answer! And then, we don’t have how many homes are built per year while how many more we want to build, what should be sizes of these homes, their costing & yet we keep making policies related to city & real estate. We have some basic idea of numbers of vehicles in the city (thanks to registration of RTO) but we don’t have numbers of vehicles which have been registered with other cities yet are being used in Pune, & we still want to streamline our traffic, wow, smart we really are!!
If Grand Mai Baap govt really wants to make this city (or any city) Smart, then first make list of the fronts of life where citizens are needed the smartness aspect as at present right from public toilets to getting Death certificate everywhere people are stuck & things can be improved & then design a system to deal with the problem & most importantly have a periodical review system of all these things you are doing or else it’s just first step which we celebrate & then everybody forgets about the direction of the travel & eventually the mission dies its own death! At the same time, smartness is not just relying on some apps & AI, is the truth we must understand & accept, because like ACs’ & Cars’ these are just tools to ease out our life but unless we learn to use these apps & keep them updating (again data) on their own they can’t change our lives! Here comes the most important aspect in failure of SCM & that is our intent to become smart. Presently IPL (plz google) is going on & all the commentators repeatedly use this word, “intent” which means even if everything possible to win the match has been provided to you such at right pitch, infrastructure, luck is on your side to win the toss, yet the players have to show their sincere right efforts in their game to win as then only victory is achieved! Same way Smart City Mission can fetch us funds, give you authority, man-power & everything but if intent is not there to understand smartness & to implement it, then even the Gods can’t make you smart & this is applicable to every citizen of self-proclaimed smart city named Pune; mind it, adios with this warning!
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Sanjay Deshpande
Sanjeevani Dev.
Please view my sharing about finding a Right Home/ Office in Pune, at YouTube link below & share if liked...
https://youtu.be/27j3I3rwGPQ?si=-ODYBxVI2Dl_C345
Please do visit my blog links below to read about real estate & home buying!
https://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2024/12/right-home-buying-in-2025.html
https://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/2024/12/2025.html
Creating Togetherness; team Sanjeevani Way (Click link below)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/65629150@N06/albums/72157627904681345
For any of your complaints about city, log in at link below
www.punecorporation.org
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