In mid-November 2020 the GoST project held its third stakeholder workshop on interrogating the governance and financial implications of ‘Smart Cities’ in India. The workshop brought together a diverse set of people working on the conceptualisation, financing and implementation of ‘smart city’ projects across India, in the wider context of urbanization in India. The aim of the workshop was to develop a critical outlook on the ‘smart city’ mission in the overall landscape of governance and planning and to support researchers, activists, media representatives, public administrators, corporate executives, planners, architects, students and academics to develop a critical understanding of the implications of the ‘smart city’ mission.

An overview is available online.

See also:

Report of the Workshop on Interrogating Governance and Financial Implications of ‘Smart Cities’ (Part I) held on 12th November 2020.

Report of the Workshop on Interrogating Governance and Financial Implications of ‘Smart Cities’ (Part II) held on 19th November 2020.

Qamar ZJ & Chandrima Mazumdar, ‘Smart Cities Mission’ is anti-poor, non-inclusive, and against the consitutional mandate: Experts, RW News Network, 30 November 2020.

The workshop was organized by the Environment Support Group (ESG) and Centre for Financial Accountability (CFA) in cooperation with Harvard Kennedy School & Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ.

Header photo: The port of Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh (Charu Sharma via Flickr). Kakinada has been identified as part of the Government of India’s ‘Smart City’ mission.