Today's Practice Question

Que. 1. With a brief background of quality of urban life in India, introduce the objectives and strategy of the ‘Smart City Programme.” (UPSC - 2016) [150 Words]
Ans. According to Census 2011, nearly 31% of total population reside in urban area, which is expected to rise around 50% by 2030.
Quality of life in urban areas are too diverse for instance on one hand we have planned development like Chandigarh on the other slums like Dharavi lying in heart of Mumbai.
Their challenges are also too diverse for ex. Delhi is grappling with issue of pollution, Mumbai and Chennai with floods every monsoon but in general the challenges they face are: 
1. Housing and Slums; 2. Crowding and Depersonalisation; 3. Water Supply and Drainage; 4. Transportation and Traffic; 5. Power Shortage, 6. Sanitation; 7. Pollution.
In this backdrop, Government of India launched Smart Cities Mission to identify and roll out smart cities in order to drive economic growth, strengthen governance as well as enhance the quality of life for people. 
Objectives of “Smart City Programme”:
To promote cities that cater core infrastructure and provide its citizens a decent quality of life, a clean and sustainable environment and application of ‘Smart Solutions’. 
Strategy of creating smart cities : 
The strategic in the Smart Cities Programme are city improvement (retrofitting), city renewal (redevelopment) and city extension (greenfield development) plus a Pan-city initiative in which Smart Solutions are applied covering larger parts of the city. 

1. Retrofitting – It  will introduce planning in an existing built-up area to achieve smart city objectives, along with other objectives, to make the existing area more efficient and liveable.
2. Redevelopment will effect a replacement of the existing built-up environment and enable co-creation of a new layout with enhanced infrastructure using mixed land use and increased density..
3. Greenfield development will introduce most of the Smart Solutions in a previously vacant area using innovative planning and plan implementation tools (e.g. land pooling/ land reconstitution) with provision for affordable housing, especially for the poor.
4. Pan-city development envisages application of selected Smart Solutions to the existing city-wide infrastructure. Application of Smart Solutions will involve the use of technology, information and data to make infrastructure and services better. 

These provisions under smart city, if implemented earnestly will go a long way in enabling the urban dweller to have a wholesome experience of city life.

Que. 2. What do you mean by over urbanisation? What are the urban problems in city's life as a result of speedy process of urbanisation? [150 Words]
Ans. Over-Urbanisation is used to describe cities whose rate of urbanization outpaces their industrial growth and economic development. A city is considered to be over-urbanized when any additional population will lead to a decline in per capita income of the city. They are generally  characterized by an inability to provide for their populations in terms of employment and resources. 
Rapid rate of urbanization has created myriad problems for urban areas like : 

• Housing and decline in quality of life for urban dwellers : It is intense problem due to urbanization in India. Overcrowding leads to a constant problem of scarcity of houses and decline in quality of life in urban areas.
• Unemployment: The problem of joblessness is also serious as the problem of housing. Urban unemployment in India is estimated at 15 to 25 per cent of the labour force. This percentage is even higher among the educated people. 
• Slums and Squatter Settlements: The natural development of unchecked, unexpected and random growth of urban areas is the growth and spread of slums and unlawful resident settlements .The fast urbanisation in combination with industrialisation has resulted in the enlargement of slums.
• Transport: Urbanization poses major challenge to transport system. With traffic blockage, almost all cities and towns of India are suffering from severe form of transport problem. 
• Health problem due to urbanization: Factors affecting health in slums are Economic conditions, Social conditions, Living environment, Access and use of public health care services, Hidden/Unlisted slums all due to speedy and unplanned urbanization.
• Urban Crimes: In developed cities of India, people get connected with different types of individuals who do not have similarity with one another and the problem of crimes increases with the increase in urbanisation.
• Degradation of environmental quality: Due to urbanization, there is environmental degradation especially in the quality of water, air and noise. With the influx of more people in cities, and speedy urbanisation environment degradation further becomes grim.
• Social Problems like Breakdown of social institutions like family, marriage, kingship and neighbourhood.
• Psychological problems like behaviour abnormalities, alienation, fear psychosis and sense of insecurity