Congratulations Udaipur to get selected in the first list of to be smart cities of India! It is really thrilling!! We all congratulated each other when the announcement was made! Well, indeed it is a proud moment for all of us.

But as they say with great power comes great responsibility. So when we plan to become a smart city, all of us first become smart citizens. The excellence will automatically follow.

There is no denying that we are not smart! We all love our city and proud of the heritage our city offers, but then when this tag of ‘smart city’ comes, we need to be a step ahead.

Udaipur being a small city lacks infrastructure, bad traffic conditions, not up to the mark roads, very little industrialization etc. but I hope the government will take care of it in the smart city project.

But we will have to take care of softer issues. There are a lot of things in the city that we take for granted. We take each other for granted. We do not follow traffic rules (unless we are forced to, then also we try ‘tu janta nahi main kaun hoon’ stuff), we hardly take care of pollution (Ahar river, lakes are a few examples), the bus stands and railway stations are filthy compared to some better cities, we think whole of the city is a huge toilet and a spittoon, notice the ramps outside our houses – all blocking roads. These are just a few examples of the things that need improvement.

A city is well managed and operated not only by the administration but by its people. If the people do not cooperate, a city never becomes a better place to live. And I see no reasons why we can’t improve on these issues. We have had in past also Daroli – near airport, as model village of Rajasthan and yes the people made it!

So we all must take the challenge that whether government makes our city smart or not, we will become smart citizens because smart city needs smart people! Authored by Siddharth Singhvi. For more writings from the same author visit www.sid1988.blogspot.in