Development and prosperity are not just about acronyms like HDI but also about the path that luxury takes to becoming a necessity. Technology is always about redefining and reinventing every little aspect affecting our lives to make it fit into its spaces like never before. Thus the word ‘smart’ is no longer about that multi-tasking gadget in your hands today but has begun its journey to explore every other thing that has the potential to make a society smile and be contended. Cities too are now poised to be smart!
Yes, smart cities, as Mr Modi said, are all about ‘urbanisation that should be viewed as an opportunity and urban centres as growth engines’. In the long-term growth plans of India, smart cities will be suitable cities, the only ones that will have the power to translate industry-ready and talent and skill into productive and profitable output. Thus a target of 5x GDP growth, 70% new employment in cities, and a 270 million future-ready task-force added to the working population is what smart cities in India can deliver by 2030. One report points out that 100 new smart cities will contribute to 80% of India’s GDP and 75% of urban population. This is what suits our dream of charging up to a stage in nation building, therefore, speaking in favour of smart cities as being suitable makes a lot of sense.
Talking of smart cities, 7 of the proposed 100 will be in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal, and Uttarakhand, will be connected by AKDIC or the Amritsar-Delhi-Kolkata Industrial Corridor and contribute to 12% of India’s GDP. This has the potential to bring together in a harmonious relationship 1 million businesses, 330 global economic hubs, and Fortune 500 companies. The World Trade Center in Chandigarh Aerocity is going to be a part of one of these future ready cities and will effectively help the area in lifting its HDI status, make it a lucrative outsourcing destination, and translate an urban population into a future-ready urban population. This is all that is poised to begin.
A brief survey of how this dream is going to be converted into reality tells me of the vital role that WTC is playing. WTC, or World Trade Center, is a global powerbrand creating landmarks of prosperity by delivering profitable opportunities to a million businesses for 75 years, promises and ensures higher occupancy, longer leases, and higher rents, and are proven catalysts of regional development thereby significantly improving their own capital values.
Cities can never get smarter by mushrooming growth in an unplanned way that meanders directionless, but needs to adopt plans that include a 24×7 availability of high quality utility services like water and power, emphasises on a robust transport system, provides opportunities for jobs and livelihoods for its inhabitants, encourages the safety and security of the people, promotes state-of-the-art health and education facilities, and cares to conserve energy, encourages water conservation and ensures a proper recycling of waste that is produced. These are reasons that point out to the validity of the awakened social consciousness that global powerbrands like the WTC include in their vision for India’s future.
The success parameter of life is that what you have done for the people, and WTC has a lot to show in this arena. This is precisely what propels it towards making a meaningful contribution to building smart structures for suitably smart cities in India.
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#BeAtTheCentre #JoinTheLeague
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Arvind Passey
04 December 2015
