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Smart Cities or Smart Citizens ?
Column
By
Nidhi Rauthan
Have you ever wondered what a smart city is?
In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi got to power along with his BJP gov-
ernment, with a vision to make India a fully developed country. He initiated the
Smart City Mission under which 100 cities were to be chosen from all over the
country to be converted into Smart Cities. It is a 5-year program and the mis-
sion is still in progress. The total Funding for the project is US $15 billion i.e., ₹
98,000 crores. Ministry of Urban Development is in charge of the Smart City
Project. The smart city is a concept of urbanization and retrofitting of a place to
make it sustainable, to make things accessible to people, the city that is ideal for
job opportunities and numerous employment availability where nature and tech-
nology both could co-exist without any compromise. For this, the buildings
should be constructed on barren lands instead of cutting down a large number
of trees, also more plantation should be done to avoid the formation of concrete
forest in order to make a smart city. A smart city is not just formed by big
buildings, rich societies and literate people it's when the people start behaving
smartly, so a very important component of a smart city is smart people who
could understand their responsibilities not just towards their personal life, but
keeping whole society, city and their country in mind.