NEW DELHI: For Delhi, the challenges that confront its citizens include inadequate basic services both in quality and quantity, and in easy and smart access. Owing to its tremendous economic vitality and ever-expanding job opportunities, the city will need transport facilities and infrastructure, education, health services with communications, leisure, open spaces, controlled pollution, and basic safety and security catering to all sections.
Keeping this reality, what the national smart city document contains does not fit Delhi. The proposals appear to create quasi-gated and privileged habitations. What we require instead is large-scale housing for the lower-income groups with solutions for water, sanitation and solid waste management, within the city as integrated colonies. Paying for basic services, even though payments can be staggered in favour of the poor is needed to ensure sustainable usage, conservation and equity.
Delhi needs a system that smartly forces people to adopt formal sanitation and drinking water systems. It needs severe and invasive civic law enforcement to deliver services; and payment of taxes to use the city’s economy for its own growth.
Being home to some of the best schools and medical services, the next phase should to ensure universal public schooling to reduce inter-city movement of children and ensuring equity among children from all classes and communities. The health system needs national level funds and medical personnel, so that Delhiites gets their share of easy and quality healthcare. Further, there has to be integration in planning transport, roads, housing and commercial centres in the NCR space.
The Delhi citizen especially has to learn to live with the same privileges that other Indians have. Delhi cannot be an enclave of privilege, prejudice and singular focus for media, politics and civil society.
The author is a Congress leader