Urban Geography of India

1. INDIAN URBANISATION
SMART CITIES & URBAN RENEWAL

2. Smart Cities Mission
• Smart Cities Mission: It is aimed at developing 100 smart cities across the country by
promoting smart solutions for efficient use of available assets, resources and infrastructure
with the objective of enhancing the quality of urban life and providing a clean and sustainable
environment.
• Focus: The focus of the mission will be on core infrastructure services like Adequate and clean
Water supply, Sanitation and Solid Waste Management, Efficient Urban Mobility and Public
Transportation, Affordable housing for the poor, power supply, robust IT connectivity,
Governance, especially e-governance and citizen participation, safety and security of citizens,
health and education and sustainable urban environment.
• Approach: The mission adopts area based approach consisting of retrofitting, redevelopment,
pan-city initiatives and development of new cities.
• Under Retrofitting, deficiencies in an identified area will be addressed through necessary
interventions as in the case of Local Area Plan for downtown Ahmedabad.
• Redevelopment enables reconstruction of already built-up area that is not amenable for any
interventions, to make it smart, as in the case of Bhendi Bazar of Mumbai and West Kidwai
Nagar in New Delhi.
• Pan-city initiatives could be interventions like Intelligent Transport Solutions which benefit
residents by reducing commuting time.

3. Smart Cities Mission
• Selection Criteria: Smart City aspirants will be selected through a City Challenge
Competition intended to test the ability of the cities to achieve the mission
objectives. Each state will shortlist a certain number of smart city aspirants as per
the norms to be indicated by the Union Government and they will prepare smart
city proposals for further evaluation for extending Central support.
• Funding: While, each selected city would get central assistance of 100 crore
rupees per year for five years a cumulative amount of 48000 crore rupees
allocated for the mission
• Implementation: Smart City Action Plans will be implemented by Special Purpose
Vehicles (SPV) to be created for each city and state governments will ensure
steady stream of resources for SPVs.

4. AMRUT
• Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT): It is aimed at
developing infrastructure in 500 cities and towns that are having a population of one
lakh and above with an outlay of 50000 crore rupees between 2015-16 and 2019-20.
• The mission also includes some cities situated on stems of main rivers, a few capital
cities, important cities located in hilly areas, islands and tourist areas.
• Implementation: Implementation is linked to promotion of urban reforms such as e-
governance, constitution of professional municipal cadre, credit rating of urban local
bodies, energy and water audit and citizen-centric urban planning among others.
• Approach: The mission adopts a project based approach to ensure basic infrastructure
services relating to water supply, sewerage, transport and development of green spaces
among others.
• Uncompleted projects under JNNURM: Central assistance will be extended under
AMRUT to the projects sanctioned under JNNURM but not completed.

5. How AMRUT differs from Smart Cities Mission?
• Though the two missions are interrelated in the sense that AMRUT seeks to lay a
foundation to enable smaller cities and towns to eventually grow into smart
cities,
• they differ in the following ways:
• While Smart Cities Mission focuses on a select larger urban areas, the AMRUT
mission is intended to improve infrastructure in small cities having population of
one lakh and above and towns of special importance only.
• While Smart Cities Mission adopts area based approach focusing on improving
amenities in a specific area of a larger city, the AMRUT mission adopts functional
based approach focusing on improving the delivery of services in the designated
towns and smaller cities.

6. Housing for All (Urban) Mission
• It has four components viz., slum rehabilitation, credit linked interest
subsidy, affordable housing and beneficiary-led individual house construction
or enhancement.
• States and Union Territories (UTs) can choose best options amongst four
components of the mission to meet the demand of housing in their states.
• It will be implemented as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme and the States and
Union Territories (UTs) are given greater autonomy in execution of the
mission.
• Houses constructed under the mission would be allotted in the name of the
female head of the households or in the joint name of the male head of the
household and his wife.
• In order to avoid duplicity, the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty
Alleviation issued an order on 19 May 2015 cancelling the existing Rajiv
Awas Yojana (RAY), Rajiv Rinn Yojana (RRY)and Affordable Housing in
Partnership (AHP) schemes and subsuming them under the new mission.

7. .
• Under the Slum rehabilitation component Union Government will provide grant
of one lakh rupees per house. A State Government would have flexibility in
deploying this slum rehabilitation grant to any slum rehabilitation project taken
for development using land as a resource for providing houses to slum dwellers.
• Under the Credit Linked Interest Subsidy component interest subsidy of 6.5
percent on housing loans availed up to a tenure of 15 years will be provided to
Economically Weaker Sections/ Lower Income Group (EWS/LIG) categories,
wherein the subsidy pay-out on Net Present Value (NPV) basis would be about
2.3 lakh rupees per house for both the categories.
• Central assistance at the rate of 1.5 lakh rupees per house for EWS category will
be provided under Affordable housing component in partnership with public and
private sectors and Beneficiary-led individual house construction or
enhancement.
• State Government or their para statals like Housing Boards can take up project of
affordable housing to avail the Central Government grant.

8. .
• It will cover the entire urban area consisting of 4041 statutory towns with initial focus
on 500 Class I cities and it will be implemented in three phases Phase-I (April 2015 –
March 2017) to cover 100 Cities to be selected from States/UTs as per their
willingness, Phase – II (April 2017 – March 2019) to cover additional 200 Cities
and Phase-III (April 2019 – March 2022) to cover all other remaining Cities.
• There will be flexibility in covering number of cities in various phases and inclusion of
additional cities may be considered by the Union Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty
Alleviation in case there is demand from States and cities and have capacity to include
them in earlier phases.
• Credit linked subsidy component of the scheme would be implemented across the
country in all statutory towns from the very beginning.
• A Technology Sub-mission would be set up to facilitate adoption of modern,
innovative and green technologies and building material for faster and quality
construction of houses.
• Best practices in terms of affordable housing policies of the States/UTs designs and
technologies adopted by States and Cities are compiled with an objective to spread best
practices across States and cities and foster cross learning.
• A virtual platform will be developed to obtain suggestions and inputs on house
design, materials, technologies and other elements of urban housing.

9. SUSTAINABLE CITIES
CHARACTERISTICS

10. .

11. SUSTAINABLE CITY CHARACTERISTICS

12. .
More Sustainable Less Sustainable
Compact forms of residential
Development.
Low-density, spread-out residential development.
Mixed land use; homes, jobs and
shopping in close proximity/TD.
Segregation of land uses: homes, jobs and shopping separated
into uniform tracts or concentrations.
Employment based primarily on
education and skills.
Employment based primarily on
environment polluting or non-renewable resource based
industry.
Movement on foot and by bicycle and transit. Heavy dependence on private cars.
Wind and solar energy. Thermal and nuclear energy.
Tertiary treatment of sewage; use of natural means of sewage
treatment.
Discharge of sewage into water bodies or water-courses
untreated or with low level of treatment.
Protection and use of natural hydrologic systems. Hard surfaces preventing infiltration; channeling natural
water-courses.
Natural open space; protection of
wetlands, woodlands, stream valleys, habitat, etc.; use of
manure, compost, integrated pest management, etc.
Destruction of natural landscape;
"manicured" parkland with exotic
species; heavy use of chemical
fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides.
Reduction of waste; recovery, re-use and recycling of waste
materials.
Landfills, incinerators.

13. COMPONENTS OF MAKING SUSTAINABLE
CITIES
• CITIZEN PARTICIPATION AND POPULATION SIZE CONTROL
• TECHNOLOGICAL SOLUTIONS ( SMART CITIES; GREEN BUILDINGS)
• URBAN MORPHOLOGY (EFFICIENT – CLUSTERING; CONSERVATION –
RESTORATION OF ECOSYSTEMS)
• DEMAND AND ENERGY MANAGEMENT ( MRTS- PUBLIC TRANSPORT;
HYBRID FUEL)
• HOUSING AND HABITAT MANAGEMENT
• GOVERNANCE AND CIVIC AMMENITIES MANAGEMENT