Abstract
There is a growing consensus that the initiatives taken under the Smart Cities Mission (SCM) in India should be used as an opportunity to prepare models for Environmentally Sustainable Smart Cities (ESSC). While developed countries have earlier worked towards Sustainable Cities and now are moving towards Smart Sustainable Cities, the conditions in developing countries are different. In their current form, SCM guidelines appear to emphasize more on social and economic development along with governance issues using modern tools of information and communication technology (ICT). To ensure environmental sustainability of such large-scale development planning, after a two-stage screening process, 24 environmental indicators have been finalized (including 11 from the existing guidelines), which can be used to monitor various environmentally sustainable elements of smart cities. Accordingly, in the present study; a tentative framework has been developed using these indicators to arrive at a Smart City Environmental Sustainability Index (SCESI) on a 0–100 increasing scale, and the city’s environmental sustainability has been classified under five categories: Excellent; Good; Fair; Poor or Critically Low; based on decreasing SCESI. Using this framework, five Indian cities, which are currently being developed under SCM (Delhi; Patna; Allahabad; Varanasi; and Bhubaneswar), have been examined. The analyses indicate that while three of them (Delhi, Allahabad, and Bhubaneswar) are found in the Fair (SCESI = 40–60) category of environmental sustainability, two (Varanasi and Patna) are in the Poor (SCESI = 20–40) category. The SCESI developed may be used as a monitoring and diagnostic tool for planning and managing services connected with the environment surrounding human life.
Highlights
As per the census report 2001, there were 5161 classified towns and 384 urban agglomerations in India, which increased to 7935 classified towns and 475 urban agglomerations in2011 [1]
The results reveal that Degree of Segregation (w = 0.171) possesses the highest influence on Solid Waste Management (SWM) followed by Degree of scientific disposal of MSW (w = 0.165) and Extent of solid waste recovered (w = 0.163)
Based on the results obtained from the framework using available data in the public domain, while the environmental sustainability of Delhi, Allahabad, and Bhubaneswar fall in the Fair category (SCESI = 40–60), Varanasi and Patna are in the Poor category (SCESI < 40) (Table 3)
Summary
As per the census report 2001, there were 5161 classified towns and 384 urban agglomerations in India, which increased to 7935 classified towns and 475 urban agglomerations in. Smart Cities Mission (SCM) in India was introduced in June 2015 by the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD), Government of India (GOI), with an idea to develop 100 smart cities in the country [23] It has been developed for setting in motion a virtuous cycle of growth and development for improving the quality of life and attracting ventures for the city. In the present study, a vision of “Environmentally Sustainable Smart Cities (ESSC)” has been proposed, and a framework has been developed to calculate “Smart City Environmental Sustainability Index (SCESI)”. The SCESI may serve as a tool to measure, monitor, and maneuver the infrastructural development initiatives based on existing and planned environmental indicators
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