The title ‘City of Tomorrow’ encourages us to go bold with our imagination and build our future. Being born in a country where more than 1.2 billion people reside, it is always challenging to provide any facility equally amongst everyone. Our livelihood has evolved in a way, that the adjustment quotient is a compulsory parameter within us.
These days ,some of us are trained to compromise to such dangerous levels from where you either become a terrorist or leave a suicide note before committing one.
We need an Idea! An idea which would be genuinely acclaimed as ‘smart ‘ and to be universally accepted, which addresses issues of people who come from various social, economic and cultural backgrounds as well. A city houses both the rich and the poor. There are 179.6 million people living in Indian Cities, who fall below the poverty line. At the same time there is a quantifiable segment of affluent population in every city as well. Thus talking about cities makes me realize that the parameters of necessities and luxuries are quite varied. To connect them in a healthy and smart way is a culmination of mini utopian ideations which could cater to a 10lakh diverse population living in our cities- Quite something!!
In India, every third person is convinced that our overcrowded situation is beyond repair. The population of our country has given us many reasons to struggle. Many a times we really wish population control was as easy as evaporation, but then we do understand that science has its own limitations.
In order to ideate for future, maybe we ought to be a little crazy from inside. It is the ability to convert our problems into resources and tap the humongous potential within ourselves. What if we could actually channelize the power of our population so as to produce energy? One such crazy collaboration could be merging the commuting stations of our cities into potential power supply plants!
Each of our cities has multiple commuting stations like the railways, airports, metro stations, bus stops etc. It is these travelling hubs from where lakhs of people travel to their destination each and every day. The amount of footfall in these areas is a huge resource for a country like India where such crowded gatherings are a daily scene. We already know that technologies have evolved to tap the energy from footfall of human beings and convert the same into electricity. If only we could scale the process to a larger level, we could be actually producing electricity for the entire city. Let’s say there are power houses above each railway station in every city, which stores the power generated by the people travelling and transmits them to the light up the city. If cities start developing the modules of dual station, we could be producing electricity in the most sustainable way possible. There are so many commuters in the country who travel to multiple destinations, that problems like shortage of power supply, long hours of load shedding will be long gone. We can actually provide electricity even to the unprivileged areas of our society as well. So we are looking at a solution which could actually cater to the necessity of the underprivileged and at the same time elevate the social consciousness of the privileged section of our Cities.
These dual stations modules can be customized and even increased in metro cities like Delhi and Mumbai. The metros have a larger commuting population and an even larger population. Hence, multiple sub units can be planned to house the power generated and catered to people. For example, Thane station in Mumbai alone has around 6.54 lakh commuters in a day. To convert this potential into energy is our dream for tomorrow. This will not only help the city survive sustain-ably but give an opportunity for everyone to be a part of it. Bringing people together and creating a unified effort in building our future is also another goal we can achieve.
The agents which create change in our world are dreams in their initial stages. I am a city lover, and after living here for so many years, I cannot imagine life outside a city. A sense of belonging and feeling of abode both truly connect me with my city. It is this love and connection of every individual that we need to raise and dedicate our energies for a better tomorrow. Not just realizing the potential of a smart idea but a combined team effort to build it into reality is what we need.
There is a famous proverb- “A man is known by the company he keeps.” quite similarly a city is known and reflected by the people who reside. Let’s all come together to smartly upgrade our cities in a way that we fall in love with it all over again