Outline Development Plan for Feroke Municipality in Execution Framework of Internet of People, Internet of Government and Internet of Things

Abstract

Historically, the urban planning in India has been implemented with a top-down approach where there was little opportunity for citizen participation. The intervention of information technology or ‘smart technology’ is changing this scenario. More people can voice their opinions on different forums online and expedite the process of participation. Currently, this process is widely used within the realm of private/ personal opinion sharing, and improvement of business performance. Though slowly, different government agencies are also catching up the use of information technology. They are using different online services and telecommunications for police response, birth-death certificate registration, payment for different public services, etc. To maintain the quality of these services, it is important for the governing bodies to have an inflow of citizen participation and opinion sharing as a constant process. The 74th amendment of Indian constitution gives authority to Urban Local Bodies (ULB) to self-govern and plan for future of their respective jurisdictions. Outline Development Plan (ODP) is proposed for a period of 20 years that includes future direction of spatial development and economic aspirations of that jurisdiction as per the amendment requirement of economic development and social welfare. Citizen involvement is critical in every stage of development ODP. Traditionally, public participation meetings were held for general public and stakeholder groups’ involvement in the plan development. E-governance and e-democracy, use of information technology for information dissipation, and citizen participation in the plan making is expected to improve the frequency and number of citizens participating. The current study looks at the City of Feroke for implementing the ODP in the e-governance and e-democracy format. With more than 80% people being high-school graduates and very high literacy and e-literacy based on state sponsored project, the city of Feroke, Kerala, is a good example for implementing the use of information technology in the ODP development. Different approaches such as web-based information, interaction, and web-profile in the social networking sites, emails, and telephonic interviews were used as part of the e-democracy while developing the ODP. Along with it, a traditional household survey using a questionnaire was also used. Delphi was used for analyzing the specific stakeholders and expert opinions. Six areas—smart people, smart economy, smart living, smart mobility, smart environment, and smart government—were identified for implementing various smart technologies. The executive framework for Feroke Municipality ODP adopted Internet of People or E-Democracy (IOP), Internet of Government E-Governance (IOG), and Internet of Things (IOT). The project concludes with spatial proposals, specification for IOP, IOG, and IOT emerging out of six systems of Smart Cities.