Tomorrow's Smart Cities. Udaipur: Heritage city has a tryst with modernity

Unlike many of the 19 other cities that have been picked for redevelopment as smart cities in the first instance, laid-back and leisurely Udaipur may have had a head start in its tryst with modernity.

The picturesque city of seven lakes and many hills on the Aravalli Range boasts of a population less than 5 lakh, relatively few vehicles, comparatively clean air and a well-earned reputation as a favoured tourist destination with a rich heritage, attracting every year global and Indian tourists in numbers twice that of the city’s own population.

Plus, both its civic administrative bodies –– the two-year-old Udaipur Municipal Corporation (UMC) and the veteran Urban Improvement Trust (UIT) –– have surplus budgets. The debt-free UMC, in fact, has ₹80 crore in surplus!

The only other industry that Udaipur boasts of is mining, as 15 per cent of Rajasthan’s mining sector is based here. It is also home to seven universities. There is hardly any Indian or global hotel chain that doesn’t have a hotel in Udaipur: the small city boasts of 244 hotels and 941 restaurants, in all shapes, sizes, cuisines and budgets.

Protecting its heritage That said, however, Udaipur, once known as ‘Venice of the East’, has to work at keeping its heritage intact during the retrofitting drive to be undertaken in the heart of the city, where many structures of historical and tourist importance exist and which are the focus of the Smart City Project. Another challenge is to make this area motor vehicle-free, and make the roads ready for battery-operated vehicles. About 2.5 lakh people –– half of the city’s population –– favoured this change during the citizen engagement and consultation programme.

The residents of Udaipur are, of course, proud of their rich heritage. Udaipur is a small city in Rajasthan, which used to be the capital of the Sisodia Rajput Kingdom of Mewar State. It was founded by Maharana Udai Singh II in 1559, around a series of artificial lakes along which emerged many a lavish palace. Udai Singh II was the father of legendary Maharana Pratap Singh, who fought famous battles against the then Mughal Emperor Akbar.

Udaipur is also a hub for pilgrims who want to visit different adjoining religious places, including Nathdwara, Eklingji and Kesariaji.

Unique Udaipur In many respects, Udaipur is a unique city: of the 1.05 lakh households, less than 1 per cent live in the slums. Only 10 per cent of the city’s residents live in rented houses. Nearly 95 civic services can be accessed by citizens through 157 fully-functional e-mitra kiosks across the city.

So what changes will Udaipur witness as a Smart City? In between engaging with a flood of visitors during his afternoon ‘Janata Darbar’, Mayor Chandra Singh Kothari told BusinessLine that the Area-Based Proposal under the project covers 828 acres (or 3.4 sq km) in the Old City, with a road network of 85 km, comprising 18 of the total 55 wards under the UMC.

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It is expected to change the civic life of 20 per cent of the city’s population. Kothari has already earned a name for his drive to clear encroachments.

Lake conservation The project involves conservation of lakes and places of heritage importance, provision of pollution-free transportation and heritage walks, said Siddharth Sihag, Udaipur Municipal Commissioner.

The area-based development proposals envisage waste-water recycling and reuse by industry; it will also see rainwater harvesting, and the recharging of 10 major ‘baoris’ (traditional step-wells).

Other features of the proposals include underground ducts for power and telecom cabling, 15 per cent solar power generation through individual rooftops on PPP basis, conservation of buildings and cobbled stone heritage walks, rejuvenation of public spaces (pols, ghats, waterfront, including board-walk or floating walkways), lake conservation, floating wetlands, vertical gardens, smart garbage bins with sensors, decongestion through pedestrianisation and shared cycling, smart parking, improved technology-enabled services to tourists, interactive map-based, mobile apps on tourist facilities and a smart incident management system.

Among the pan-city proposals are plans for establishing an intelligent transport management system — incorporating ITS-enabled city bus service, e-ticketing, smart card readers, sensor-enabled parking — and smart utilities, including water and sewerage network, improved power supply, and public WiFi facilities. This will be done by converging various existing government schemes and ensuring implementation through an SPV.

The estimated cost of the project, at 2015 price levels, will be ₹1,221 crore. “Of this, we will get nearly ₹1,000 crore from the Central and the State governments, and will find the rest of the resources at the local level,” says Udaipur Collector Rohit Gupta.

Tourism growth When the project is completed, Udaipur is expected to see tourism growth of 10 per cent a year, and generate over 50,000 jobs in the next 10 years (a Rajasthan government study claimed that every ₹1 crore investment in tourism created 1,000 jobs). Additionally, modal share of public transport is expected to go up from 3 per cent to 10 per cent in the next five years and to 32 per cent by 2041; this will result in a reduction in the city’s carbon footprint by 30 per cent (from just the transport sector).

If that comes about, the city of lakes will likely get a whole lot greener.