In the recent years, India has shown remarkable resurgence in various metrics

capturing social inclusivity of its people. The Human Development Index (HDI)
which captures the consumption expenditure, education and health showed an
increase from 0.387 to 0.467 i.e. increase of 21% between 1999-00 and 200708,1 which has increased further to 0.586 in 2013. 2 The poorer states coming
close to the national average, strongly suggests that all marginalized groups
have been moving towards social inclusion. Improved employment metrics, asset
ownerships and declining poverty has been witnessed in the last few years.
Within the scope of this project, we identified the three main foundation pillars of
a truly integrated society in a smart city. We will be exploring few prominent
initiatives within these pillars by the Indian Government to bring marginalized
sections within the mainstream society. Also, we will explore the role that
technology can play through its ability to connect people together in an inclusive
framework, which is a pre-requisite for any smart city.

a) Education:

One of the major problems of Indian society over many decades has been
education. Literacy rate in India is 74.4% as per 2011 data 3, which is much
below the global average of 84% 4. Through its 86th Amendment inserted
into Article 21-A, the Constitution of India passed the Right of Children to
Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act in 2009. The act provides free
and compulsory education to all children in the age group of 6-14. It was a
unique step from the perspective that for the first time in the world, the
liability of educating the child was taken up by a nations government. This
act ensures that every child of India has a right to a full time elementary
education which is of satisfactory quality, in a formal school that conforms
to certain standards. The act not only provides for appointment of new,
trained teachers, but also lays down norms about teacher-pupil ratios,
school infrastructure, no. of working days and working hours of teachers.
Challenges faced:
The scale of the problem itself along with other bureaucratic
challenges, make this effort humongous and really difficult. The sheer
volume of out-of-school children, many of whom are either prey to
human trafficking or child labour keeps them out of school. Much is yet
to be achieved to ensure coordination between different implementing
agencies, removing discrepancies within quality of teaching provided
and enhancing the role of technology at the grassroot level.

1 http://www.iamrindia.gov.in/ihdr_book.pdf
2 http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/table-1-human-development-index-and-itscomponents
3 http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011-prov-results/indiaatglance.html
4 http://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/09/world/unicef-study-predicts-16-worldilliteracy-rate-will-increase.html

Role of Technology : Integration within a Smart City

As per our discussion with Mrs. Seema Gupta (PGT teacher, Govt. Girls
Senior Secondary school, New Delhi), many of the above bottlenecks
can be removed by use of technology. The use of multimedia,
Information and Communication Technology may greatly benefit the
above initiative. Along with enhancing delivery quality and costbenefits, it would allow the act to reach regions facing teacher
shortage. The idea of a virtual classroom which provides remote class
delivery would only need to be equipped with a PC, webcam,
microphone, speakers and decent broadband connection, and class
content from one location could be easily broadcasted to many
locations. Digital online courses in local languages e.g. Khan Academy,
can be one more such initiative. Technology will also allow moderating
and improving teacher quality, along with bringing accountability into
the
system.
Delhi
Government
through
its
website
http://www.edudel.nic.in has already started to document the details of
all govt. teachers. It provides performance reviews, latest assignments
etc. in public domain.

b) Healthcare:
A healthy nation begins from a healthy family and a healthy family cannot
be complete without healthy mother and child. Over the last many years,
Govt. of India has enacted several schemes such as Courtyard Shelters
or Anganwadi in 1975 in its Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS)
program, Dular program etc. to promote mother and child healthcare.
The main objective of such schemes was removal of child hunger,
malnutrition and providing basic health care at the village level, thus
serving as a tool for social inclusion of different communities who lack
these basic amenities. Such schemes focussed to provide immunization,
nutrition and health education, health check-up and referral services with
support of public health systems. As of 31 st Jan13, there are 13.31 lacs
operational Anganwadi and mini-Anganwadi centres (AWCs/mini-AWCs). 5
Unfortunately, these schemes have had a limited impact.
Challenges faced:
As per our discussion with Mr. A. K. Goel (Consultant, ICDS), in its
current existing form, the public healthcare system does not involve
any online monitoring of Centres and workers. There are evidences of
misuse of schemes, pilferage and time-delays along with low
accountability all of which leading to unethical practices. A lack of
efficient record management handicaps the process even further.
Role of Technology : Integration within a Smart City
As per Mr. Goel, the government has now started to focus itself onto a
new and revised web-based Management Information System (MIS),
and build strong tie-ups with National Rural Health Mission and Total
Sanitation Campaign. Name-wise monitoring of malnourished children,
registering and training at state, district and village level, along with
5 http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=92848

the integration with Mother and Child Tracking System (MCTS) by

Ministry of Health are few pending initiatives.
Within the framework of a smart city, it is essential to learn from the
success stories such as Aravind Eye Hospital and Narayana Hrudalaya.
As per our discussion with Dr. VK Das (Medical Superintendent, Coal
India, Jharkhand), smart health care will have to be driven by a smart
public-private partnership. We need to search for innovative solutions
such as the Calorie Transfer programs, telemedicine and cloud services
which maintain a central database of medical records of all citizens in
the country. In a network of smart cities, patients details will be
accessible from any location, thus easing the delivery of healthcare
services.

c) Financial Inclusion:
Recent focus of the newly formed NDA government has been on financial
inclusion, and spread the umbrella of banking services within the country.
The recently enacted Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna (PMJDY) has been
defined as a national mission by the current Prime Minister of India, Shri
Narendra Modi to ensure financial inclusion of all sections of the Indian
Society. It aims to provide access to financial services such as
Banking/Savings and Deposits Accounts, Credit, Insurance etc. 6 In the
recent budget speech, Mr. Arun Jaitley talked about a Cashless Economy,
which will assimilate all the sections of the society. 7 According to Mr. Jesse
Burst (Founder and Chairman, Smart Cities Council, USA), financial
inclusion through switching to digital payments can bring the homeless
and unbanked into the digital economy. It can insulate them from the
dangers of cash, while making fraud, drug sales and money laundering
much more difficult.
Challenges faced:
As per our discussion with Mr. S.K. Garg (Chief Manager, Central Bank
of India), PMJDY and all other steps for financial inclusion face many
challenges - delays in guidelines delivery and poor coordination among
agencies to name a few. Bureaucratic hurdles along with other social
problems like illiteracy, corruption etc. are major problems.
Role of Technology : Integration within a Smart City
The main hurdles observed as the large numbers and low volumes,
which resulted in unaffordable costs, can be tackled by technology.
Latest technology products are expected to aggressively tackle issue
of costs, convenience and reach. Core Banking Solutions (CBS) which
will provide anywhere, anytime banking will be able to provide
6 http://www.pmjdy.gov.in/Pdf/PMJDY_BROCHURE_ENG.pdf
7 http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/UPu9N5gINQpmk0j1QpkA9K/Moving-to-acashless-economy.html

customer convenience through services like NEFT, RTGS, Internet

Banking etc.
Some of the proposed benefits include: Mobile Banking, Immediate
Payment System (IMPS), Micro-ATMs, National Unified USSD Platform,
RuPay Debit Cards, Aadhaar Enabled Payment System etc. All of the
above initiatives towards creating a digital economy, which provides
direct benefit transfer will be an essential requirement in developing a
smart city for all.

Telephonic Interview
Mr. A. K. Goel
Consultant, ICDS
Ministry of Human Resource Development
Interviewer: Good Morning Mr. Goel. Thank you for time.
Mr. Goel: Its my pleasure. Tell me. How can I help you?
Interviewer: You have been closely associated with the Anganwadi
scheme since many years. The scheme was enacted in the 1970s. What
are the current challenges that you see for the scheme?
Mr. Goel: Over the years, the development and upgradation of the
scheme has been slow. We have had reports of misuse, pilferage and
delays in execution. Accountability and ensuring ethical practices has
been a challenge like any other government scheme.
Interviewer: With respect to the application at the ground-level, do you
find any challenges?
Mr. Goel: Yes. The delivery of status reports and database management
has been slow and error-prone. We have had examples of a mother
registering her child at two centres at the same time. Getting trained
people to run the centres and running training programs for new people
have been a challenge.
Interviewer: Do you think technology can come to your aid in tackling
these challenged?

Mr. Goel: Oh yes definitely. We have been working on a web-based

Management Information System (MIS). There is always a stress on
improving the coordination with other agencies like National Rural Health
Mission and Total Sanitation Campaign. We are working in tandem with NIC
to develop software that will allow us to get frequent status reports at
monthly level. Other than that we are looking to have name-wise
monitoring of malnourished children through unique EIDs for proper
tracking and status monitoring. The idea is that once these developments
are complete, we will work upon building an annual action plan, possibly
integrate with the Mother and Child Tracking System (MCTS) by Ministry of
Health.
Interviewer: Thats all. Thank You Sir! This information was really helpful.
We thank you for your time.
Mr. Goel: Sure. Let me know if you need any further help.
Interviewer: Sure. Thank You sir. Have a nice day.
Mr. Goel: Youre welcome. Good day!
Telephonic Interview
Mr. S. K. Garg (Name changed)
Chief Manager
Central Bank of India
Interviewer: Good Morning Mr. Garg. Thank you for time.
Mr. Garg: Sure. Tell me. How can I help you?
Interviewer: You have been working closely on the implementation of the
recently announced Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna. What are the major
challenges that you see for the scheme?
Mr. Garg: I feel that although this was a nice initiative, the launch was
hasty and the guidelines should have been delivered much in advance.
Today after 6 months of announcement, we are receiving these guidelines
very slowly. I find it a bit amusing that a bank account can be opened
without any address proof. The talk was to use the Aadhar card for
opening the bank account but that scheme in itself isnt without its
inefficiencies, which are now being passed onto us.
Interviewer: With respect to the application at the ground-level, do you
find any challenges?
Mr. Garg: Not only the banks have had to face additional costs burden,
but the coordination with other involved agencies like LIC for insurance
cover have been quite slow. We are still in talks with many departments of
the Ministry of Finance to remove these bottlenecks. Most of the targeted
people by this scheme are illiterate, who do not even know how to use a

Rupay card. There have been very few deposits as compared to the
investment that banks have had to undertake to organize the camps etc.
Interviewer: Do you think technology can come to your aid in tackling
these challenged?
Mr. Garg: Before looking at technology, we need to define a needy
base, much like the opposite of creamy layer for reservations. This will
enable us to prevent misuse of schemes by well-to-do people. After that
may be we can look to have some sort of an integrating software which
links the banking system and prevents UID duplication of users. Otherwise
this scheme will be a very messy affair.
Interviewer: Thats all. Thank You Sir! This information was really helpful.
We thank you for your time.
Mr. Garg: Sure. Thank You. All the best for your project.