Authors

• Shipra Maitra, Professor, Institute for Human Development, Delhi

The Smart City Mission (SCM) is the flagship programme of the Government of India to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life of people by enabling local area development and harnessing technology, especially technology that leads to Smart outcomes. Cities as engines of growth also face challenges of inequality, unplanned urbanisation, mass migration, poverty, unemployment, and the like, threatening their quality of life and challenging the attempt to achieve sustainable growth. The Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), as the major providers of urban services, need to be adequately equipped to provide core infrastructure and a decent quality of life to the residents in order to achieve the twin objectives of the SCM, i.e., competitiveness and inclusiveness. Delhi has five local bodies, of which the NDMC (New Delhi Municipal Council) has been chosen under the SCM. This paper tries to analyse how far the ULBs of Delhi are prepared to make the city competitive and inclusive.