NEW DELHI, Sep 17: Despite that total lockdown had considerably brought down the air pollution level even in the worst-hit cities, four major Indian cities saw significant drop in the world-ranking of smart cities which the experts said was a “side-effect” of Coronavirus because the cities were “not prepared for the pandemic.” Air quality in the major urban areas is one of the criterion for deciding the smart city rankings.
All the four Indian cities, New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru, which were ranked among 100 in 2019, saw drop by nearly 20 ranks in the current year in the global listing for 2020 Smart Cities. The study was carried out by the Institute for Management Development (IMD) in collaboration with Singapore University for Technology and Design (SUTD) with key findings on how technology is playing a role in Covid-19 era. The list was topped by Singapore.
In the 2020 Smart City Index, Hyderabad was placed at the 85th position (down from 67 in 2019), New Delhi at 86th rank (down from 68 in 2019), Mumbai was at 93rd place (in 2019 it was at 78) and Bengaluru at 95th (79 in 2019).
“Cities in India (New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru) suffer significant drops this year. This can be attributed to the detrimental effect that the pandemic has had where the technological advancement was not up to date,” the report said. It further added that “Indian cities have suffered more from the pandemic because they were not prepared”.
From 15 indicators that the respondents perceive as the priority areas for their city, all four cities highlighted air pollution as one of the key areas that they felt their city needed to prioritise on.
For cities like Bangalore and Mumbai, this was closely followed by road congestion while for Delhi and Hyderabad it was basic amenities, the report said.
The 2020 Smart City Index (SCI) was topped by Singapore, followed by Helsinki and Zurich in the second and the third place respectively. Others in the top 10 list include Auckland (4th), Oslo (5th), Copenhagen (6th), Geneva (7th), Taipei City (8th), Amsterdam (9th) and New York at the 10th place.
In the Smart City Index context for global listing, ‘smart city’ is described as “an urban setting that apply technology to enhance the benefits and diminish the shortcomings of urbanization.”
The second edition of the SCI ranked 109 cities worldwide by capturing perceptions of randomly chosen 120 residents in each city.
Hundreds of citizens from 109 cities were surveyed in April and May 2020 and asked questions on the technological provisions of their city across five key areas: health and safety, mobility, activities, opportunities and governance.
Reflected in this year’s rankings is that cities have ever differing approaches to technology as managing the pandemic has become increasingly important in local politics, the report said.
(Manas Dasgupta)