Wobbling Jammu & it’s aspiration of a SMART city

Jammu is a vibrant city of the state of Jammu & Kashmir. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Jammu represents the spirit of India in all its grandeur & complexities.

It is a gateway to the Matta Vaishnav Devi shrine where millions of people from across the country & the world come to have a “darshan”.

It is a gateway to the Kashmir Valley too.

Jammu is home to all the main religions of the world viz Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Christianity etc. It also is home to several ethical tribes such as Gujjar, Bakarwal, Pahari, Gaddi & Ladakhi. A large sprinkling of Kashmiri, Muslims & Pandit, community has also settled down in Jammu. Winter months bring in a large population from Srinagar, along with their vehicles, to Jammu as part of the “Darbar Move”.

Jammu is also a proud home to more than 10 languages & dialects spoken by the people of the Division.

As such Jammu is a city encompassing diversity in which a huge population is rooted in the city, but there is a large population that either transits through it or comes to live here temporarily depending upon the ‘Darbar Move’ etc.

All these features make Jammu a city of great consequence & it requires all that needs to be done to make its habitants live a peaceful life with comfort & dignity.

The diversity mentioned above brings in more challenges as the smart city envisages people’s participation in making it smart & when the stakeholders are so diverse in their approach to life & thinking the challenges become more acute.

Under a programme of the Govt. of India Jammu has been identified as a city to be developed as a SMART city. SMART is an acronym for simple, moral, accountable, responsive & transparent.

Where does Jammu stand today in as far as its SMART-ness is concerned. Jammu city can broadly be divided into four parts. The old city & the comparatively newer parts like Gandhi Nagar, Trikuta Nagar, Shastri Nagar etc & finally new expansion along Jammu bypass road. Jammu city has also expanded in the direction of Kot Balwal & Akhnoor substantially.

To understand where we stand in as far as SMART-ness of Jammu is concerned we need to look at the situation as it exists today. For it is on today’s canvas, that truthfully depicts Jammu, that we must paint a new story.

Jammu today:

What is the most appropriate place to understand Jammu today?

My instincts tell me that it is Jewel Chowk. It is a sort of nodal point which divides the old city from the new areas. It is also nodal as a lot of movement of the city is visible here. This node can generally be replicated at so many other locations.

The traffic coming from the BC Road, general bus stand, Raghu Nath Bazar, Gumat, Bohri, Akhnoor, Gandhi Nagar, Pathankot all merges at this place. Some traffic moves over the flyover & the bridge over River Tawi. However, it is the area under the flyover where the real chaotic activity unfolds.

Dozens of ‘matadors” & other buses, in the process of picking up passengers line up haphazardly on the road, blocking the flow of traffic. A consistent honking of horns by drivers of various types of vehicles plying in this stretch has no impact on the bus drivers. They rather seem to be relishing it. The interconnecting road in front of Jewel cinema hall is full of parked motorcycles, scooters, autos & cars. These vehicles are parked as per the whims & fancies of the owners. Added to these are the fruit & vegetable sellers selling their wares on “rehris” parked at all conceivable spots. A few meters towards the municipal office you come across a group of vendors selling their wares squatting on the ground. Only God knows what they sell. Though they squat very near to the main road they are not fearful of the possibility of vehicles running over them.

Traffic policemen are used to this chaos & thus immune to the happenings around.

You cross the interconnecting road & walk towards ‘Gumat’. On the left side of the road small restaurants have come up. They don’t look hygienic & drain their leftover curry as well as filth on to the footpath & the rainwater drain alongside the road, raising unbearable stench.

Bahu fort is a historical monument of Jammu & is visited by people in thousands every day. Its walls are beautifully illuminated during the evening hours but there are no streetlights on the road leading to the fort as you approach it from the University of Jammu.

The 4^th bridge over river Tawi has improved mobility in this area but there are no streetlights though the poles are erected.

Almost all the major road crossings have traffic lights installed in the city but only 5-10% of them are in operation. In any case the commuters are hardly bothered about these lights. Jumping traffic lights is generally a norm.

The matadors, Jammu’s common man’s transport, have their seats so tightly fitted in them that a passenger trying to sit in them will do proud to any gymnast considering the ‘degree of difficulty’ involved.

In the context of Jammu, the idea of a bus stop is like asking for a bus drive on the moon. The drivers & the conductors of buses are kings in their own right. (Only Basant Rath as IGP, Traffic could tame them). Their operational principle is that wherever they stop that is their “Bus Stop”. In any case, generally, they are loud & uncivil.

Jammu hardly has any designated bus stops either.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the buses plying on Jammu roads are not people friendly. In fact, they are a curse to human dignity.

Garbage dumps are another blot on the face of the city. Garbage collection containers are so located that they mess up the whole area around them. And when the garbage trucks & cranes arrive to pick up the garbage containers, they completely block the road resulting in traffic jams.

People of the city too contribute to the filthy environment in the city. Generally, the citizens, throw eatables & the garbage on the roads, corners & parks. They do not exhibit any civic sense. A visit of eateries around “Gole Market” in Gandhinagar, especially in the evenings will reveal the absence of civic sense in majority of the people (generally well educated) who throw the used disposable plates, cups & all sort of material on the road & into the drains.

Another example of lack of civic sense is the way garbage is thrown into Ranbir Canal & Tawi river. On days of festival the canal is usually full of floating polythene bags carrying used flowers & other material dumped into it by devotees.

These are a few examples enumerating cause of concern for the Jammu city today. There are innumerable such examples but jotting them down will fill up a lot of space & as hence I am just avoiding them.

With this kind of a situation of the city how can it be turned smart!!

In fact, it is important to know what is a “Smart City” first?

Concept of a SMART CITY:

What constitutes a city is not concrete or glazy buildings, roads, bridges, parks & transport systems etc. A city is an organic entity in which humans live, who have emotions, a feeling for & an attachment to the environment.

Mr. Narendra Luther defines identity of a city in his book “Hyderabad” as primarily made by its people: men & women who live in it; who eat & drink, sweat & toil, sleep, dream there; who raise families & in the process, pass on from youth to old age & then to death. The city provides them sustenance, gives them their hopes & dreams, ennobles them, defeats them – when they come to their journeys end, takes them into its lap like a mother.

He also quotes Aristotle’s dictum that the city’s raison d’etre is to make life better.

So, to make life better for the citizens of a city the Govt. of India included it in a list that were supposed to be made smart.

Government of India, in June 2015 issued a document named ‘Mission Statement & Guidelines for the Smart City mission’. It is a comprehensive document which speaks about the concept of a Smart City, process of its selection, method of  implementing the concept, mile stones & funding etc.

The Government believes that by 2030, 40% of Indian population shall be living in urban areas & shall be contributing 75% of its GDP. This will be up from the present population of 31 % living in urban areas & contributing GDP of 61%. (The data is based on 2011 census).

In view of above there will obviously be pressure on the resources of urban centers. To enhance livability, workability & sustainability of the cities, the document states, technology must be leveraged to enhance the quality of life of its citizens.

It also speaks about the essential features of the Smart City, which could be different for different cities as no one model can fit to the requirement of every city. Some of the essential features, from the document, that can be made applicable to Jammu are as under:

1. Assured Electricity supply, 10% of which could be from solar plants.
2. Smart metering.
3. Robust IT connectivity & digitization.
4. Replacement of overhead power lines with underground cables.
5. At least 80% building to be energy efficient & green.
6. Energy efficient street lighting.
7. Intelligent traffic management.
8. Non-vehicle streets & zones. Smart parking.
9. Pedestrian friendly pathways. Encouragement to non-motorized transport.
10. Innovative use of open spaces & visible improvement in the areas.
11. Encroachment free public areas.
12. Adequate water supply.
13. Wastewater recycling & storm water reuse.
14. Rainwater harvesting.
15. Sanitation including solid waste management.
16. Ensuring safety of women, children & the elderly.
17. Out of total housing in the greenfield areas 15% should be under affordable housing category.
18. Another point that can be added are:
    1. use of environment friendly, low bed, battery operated vehicles & battery charging facilities.
    2. making Jammu green by planting trees and ensuring their sustenance over a period of time.

Essentially, the idea of a ‘Smart City’ is to leverage telecom & digital technology for the benefit of the citizens.

Given the present condition of the Jammu city, how do we go about making it smart? It requires that a comprehensive plan be devised for implementing the scheme as mentioned in 18 points above & intelligent devices be installed & connected to a control center that would eventually provide data to the policy & decision makers.

This is a great challenge. But a beginning can be made.

I will consider Jammu taking baby steps towards ‘smart city’ in following few ways. I am mentioning these few steps as they are implementable as well as measurable. Any step that is not measurable is not even worth working for:

1. Installation of LED streetlights in all the areas of the city with proper planning & publicly announced target dates. Plan & progress in this direction should be visible to citizens of Jammu through a mobile application or on the J&K PDD website. A beginning can be made from the road to Bahu fort & the streetlights on the fourth bridge over River Tawi.
2. The web site of J&KPDD should inform on real time basis the position of power supply in various parts of the city including information about outages, damaged distribution transformers & their restoration schedule etc. thus bringing transparency to its operations.
3. Similar effort can be made regarding the water supply in the city.
4. “e-seva kendras” may be established in various parts of the city for catering to the various government-to-citizen services like land records, pension schemes, ration cards and business-to-consumer services like railway tickets, utility payments, banking and agriculture related issues. A leaf can be taken from the ‘e-seva kendras’ in Chandigarh or elsewhere.
5. There are several car parking areas in the city. Their real time occupancy could be made available to public through a relevant application thus avoiding unnecessary hunt by the law-abiding drivers to look for a parking space. I say ‘law abiding drivers’ as in the present times the “non-law-abiding ones” will park them anywhere. This brings us back to the question of identifying more areas in the city that can be used for parking of vehicles.
6. All the traffic lights should be made functional & supplemented with CCTV cameras. This will also call for a fully functional control room so that a close watch is kept on the traffic in the city for its management. This will also help in crowd management & keeping an eye on law & order issues of the city. Several software are available that can be configured to generate results as per the requirement of the user.
7. A plan for road repairs & implementation schedule should be made public with target dates through a mob application or website of the PWD so that citizens are fully aware of the progress in this regard. There are several roads in the city that have not been repaired for more than 15 years as they don’t fall in a VIP area of the city.
8. Certain areas like “Raghu Nath Bazar” & “Mubarak Mandi” should be declared traffic free for a few hours on certain days of the week, to begin with. Even the shop keepers should not be allowed vehicles into these areas on the particular day/s. These areas should become a functioning & throbbing stage for the children & youth of Jammu to exhibit their talent in whatever field they excel like music, dance, drama, painting, running, cycling or whatever they feel they are proficient in. Later additional areas of the city can also be brought under this scheme for larger participation by the citizens.
9. Municipal corporation may encourage citizens to store their garbage in bags at their residences or business establishments which would then be picked up by the Municipal vehicle at fixed intervals for proper disposal. This practice is being followed by several cities in the country, including Indore. This will certainly require a lot of planning from Jammu Municipality.
10. Battery operated buses & auto-rickshaws should be encouraged in the city. It is encouraging to see that a few battery-operated buses have recently been inducted on a few selected routes of Jammu.
11. Ola & UBER type application-based taxi services should be introduced in the city. This will make life very easy for the commuters in the city.
12. Plantation of trees on a large scale can be organized with the help of Forest Department & Forest Corporation. It was fascinating to see a video of Gurudwaras distributing trees for plantation as “prasad” to the devotees, thus encouraging community participation.

A single mobile application can be developed to cater to the various services in the city. Otherwise they can be hosted on the web portal of the concerned Departments.

‘Smart City’ is a very big idea involving user friendly technology. To achieve it Jammu doesn’t seem to be fully prepared yet, but a beginning can be made by taking steps mentioned above.

A paragraphs on the larger goal for a ‘Smart City”.

The goal for a “Smart City” is much bigger. A few examples below will illustrate the point.

For example, if we install intelligent devices, in a planned manner in the car parking areas & connect it to communication devices & relevant application it will be possible for a driver to physically identify a location where he/she can park the vehicle.

Similarly, the garbage containers can be fitted with devices which shall generate an alarm when garbage dumped in it reaches a certain level enabling Municipality to take appropriate action.

The operation of streetlights can be enabled through light sensors so that they get on or off depending upon the intensity of the day light. It is not a big deal & is implementable.

I am not sure whether there is any thought process in the Municipal Committee of the city regarding solid waste management. This is critical area that needs to be addressed without fail.

In a utopian world of technology driven ‘smart city’ if a pothole is seen by a citizen on a particular road, he/she should be able to upload the photograph of the same on the website of the concerned Department for taking immediate action. But…………?! These are the limitations of the concept of ‘smart city’ in Jammu.

As such there is a lot required to be done not only in the field of technology but also in the field of spreading awareness among the citizens & ensuring their participation in such ventures.

Nonetheless, this is in the realm of possibility & the citizens of Jammu city & other stake holders should strive for achieving what is possible now & plan the rest for the future in a transparent manner.

In short:

JAMMU AS A SMART CITY IS POSSIBLE, PROVIDED ALL JAMMUITES DESIRE TO IMPROVE THEIR LIVES & LIVES OF THEIR CHILDREN AS WELL AS THAT OF THE NEXT GENERATION.