VMC whips up hype, wears Smart City logo on its sleeve

The proposal, dated March 17, has been approved by the VMC Standing Committee. It states, “In an effort to ensure that Vadodara city may be chosen as the Smart City, expenses have to be met for remuneration of manual labour, agencies hired for various advertisements, radio ads to create awareness among citizens and seek their participation; hoardings to enlist the Smart City project details, print forms and pamphlets, organise fairs for Smart City as well as discussions and brainstorming sessions. An estimated miscellaneous expense of Rs 45 to 50 lakh is sought for this purpose so that works can be carried out without the mandatory process of tenders and offers.” The Standing Committee has approved the discretionary power for using the expenditure.

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A VMC official said, “There was no tender procedure for procuring the T-shirts. It was a decision made by the officers who are part of the team overseeing the Smart City mission. The idea was to introduce discipline among the officers and bring a sense of pride in working for the Smart City.” The civic body is also promoting the concept among the citizens through radio ads and hoardings across the city, inviting “valuable feedback”. VMC ads state that citizen feedback was crucial to earn the Smart City tag.

The VMC has also changed the personalised caller tune of its employees’ phones to a jingle recorded for the Smart City initiative, urging residents to fill up feedback forms.

A female voice in the recorded caller tune in Hindi, says, “To make Vadodara a Smart City, give your feedback,” and enlists the VMC website, a toll-free number and a WhatsApp mobile number on which citizens can share their feedback. The initiative, officers say, has been made in order to include citizen feedback to prioritise the programmes for Smart City. In its radio jingle in Gujarati, however, the VMC shifts the onus of losing out of the race due to “low citizen participation”. The radio jingle says, “Do you know why Vadodara could not become a Smart City? Because the citizens did not send their feedback in large numbers. But there is another chance. Send your feedback now and make Vadodara a Smart City.”

Officials say that the idea behind the Citizen Connect initiative is only to gauge the problems that the citizens feel most strongly about and has no effect on the city’s chances to become a Smart city. “The feedback can be analysed to prepare a detailed proposal that can be forwarded to the center. We were unable to do much in the first phase as people did not share their views,” an official said.

Union Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu, while announcing the first phase of cities in January, had said that people’s participation had 16 per cent weightage in the entire proposal sent by the civic bodies as part of the “bottom up” selection process. To qualify, local body administrations had to undertake a test of a template of 43 questions seeking smart answers. Officials of the VMC admit that the proposal sent for the Smart City required efficient funding models for development funds. “Our proposal was prepared on the basis of several Public Private Partnership models for development works across the city,” an officer privy to the submitted Smart City proposal said.

The VMC website prompts visiting citizens to fill up feedback forms as the “most wanted condition”. The website says, “Vadodara city is selected among 100 smart cities by the Government of India. After declaration of first 20 smart cities, in June, a second round of 40 more Smart Cities will be declared and now Vadodara city is competing for it, though all 100 selected cities are going to be covered under the Smart City Mission. With determination to be selected in the second round of competition, citizen participation is the most wanted condition in picking of smart city. In order to have clear ratings of one of the services available in the city, a citizen’s opinion/suggestions are invited. A sincere effort will be made to prepare Smart City proposal upon your valuable inputs.”

VMC Standing Committee Chairperson Dr Jigisha Seth said, “We have approved the miscellaneous budget of Rs 50 lakh for the promotion and campaign of Smart City. This includes radio ads, pamphlets, printing of feedback forms and it can also include other promotional activity like fairs. Even the T-shirts can be procured under this as part of the promotions, but I am not sure about it.” Asked if the VMC was giving more importance to promotions than the actual planning of the proposal that could earn the city a Smart tag, Dr Seth said, “Public participation is very essential for earning the Smart City tag as it is on the basis of their feedback that we will prepare our proposals. We are in the process of collecting the feedback in order to assess the most important areas that we need to focus on for the city’s development.”

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