ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the key innovative features of the Smart City Plan (2015) of Bhubaneswar – a medium-sized Indian city, undergoing rapid transformation from an administrative town into a vibrant regional hub of business services and tertiary education. While Smart Cities are usually associated with the application of knowledge-intensive technological interventions to improve urban systems, Bhubaneswar has outlined a citizen-driven vision for the future through a creative public communication strategy by considerably redefining the concept. Innovative application of online and offline media enabled Bhubaneswar’s Smart City Plan to reach out to marginalized sections of the urban society – who are otherwise ignored by conventional planning mechanisms. Moreover, the technology-enabled future articulated in the Smart City Plan takes an inclusionary approach by providing for the livelihood needs of the urban poor through skill-building and micro-enterprise support programs. Additionally, by analysing the multi-scalar institutional structure of planning, this chapter demonstrates how innovative approaches conceptualized at the scale of municipal and state governments can be dovetailed within the structured framework of a funding scheme sponsored by the national government.
