Smart Nashik

This Storymap is part of our wider research project on  Learning from Small Cities , and reports on Nashik, India.

Nashik is a city of 1.4m population and third largest city in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. It has long been known as a site of Hindu pilgrimage that hosts the  Kumbh Mela  every twelve years - a huge congregation of devotees by the banks of the river Godavari. In recent times it has also come to be known as the ' wine capital ' of India, due to the growing wine economy in its western outskirts.

The inclusion of Nashik into India's  100 Smart City Mission  marks a crucial moment in the city's imagination of reconciling traditional and modern elements of its identity. In this report we present the lessons from Nashik through the themes of imagining, governing, and living urban futures.

Nashik is a place of multiple identities - the spatial anchor of a prosperous agrarian economy, a declining industrial hub, a defence base, a network of Hindu pilgrimage sites, and most recently - one of the 100 aspiring smart cities in India.

The inception of urbanisation in Nashik took place around the central temple complex of Panchavati which today lends its name to one of the seven municipal divisions through which the city is governed. The settlement of Nashik first gained urban status in 1864 under the British colonial regime, when it was designated as a "nagar parishad" (municipality). In 1982, when the population of the settlement exceeded 1.2 million, it was granted Municipal Corporation status.

The temple complex on the banks of the Godavari finds mention in the Bombay Presidency Gazette of 1883-84 in the following words:

In 1962 on the occasion of its 100th anniversary, the Nashik Municipal Corporation published an edited volume by the name of Jeevan Ganga (in Marathi) documenting the various phases in the development of the municipality. This further illustrates the centrality of the Godavari river temple complex to the history and identity of the city.

The following snapshots give us an overview of the key demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the city.

The following maps show key demographic changes such as population densities and growth, sex ratios, literacy and employment in the city between the 2001 and 2011 census.

Disclaimer: As in the case of many other small cities, the availability of data and possibility of analysis is hindered by frequent changes to the administrative geographies of these places. In the past three decades the sub-municipal units of Nashik have been arranged and re-arranged at least three times, changing the total number of wards in the city, their distribution within the six divisions, and the number of elected representatives in the municipal assembly. This also means that the Census data is not comparable over time across these shifting geographical and administrative units.

The centrality of the river and the temple economy it sustains, lies at the heart of reframing an identity and future of Nashik.

In the 1960s a number of public sector industrial enterprises were established in Nashik. In recent years there has been a downturn in Nashik’s manufacturing industries, with local union leaders reporting the retrenchment of large numbers of contract workers and some industries shutting down or moving to neighbouring Gujarat.

In the last three decades (1990-2020) the real estate economy in Nashik in particular, has boomed. Apartment complexes have sprung up around the city, and real estate advertisements dominate the landscape. A  Mint Article  notes that the share of total housing sales in over 20 tier-II cities, including Nagpur, has increased to 25% (2018-2019), compared to 16% five years ago.

The following maps developed by Dr Bharat Gadakh at the Dept. of Geography, KTHM College depict these stark trends.

Disclaimer: The visualisations above, showing 'built up' areas of Nashik we produced from analysis of historic remote sensed imagery by Dr Bharat Gadakh.

Click on the interactive timeline below to read more on Nashik's urban transformations

In 2016, Nashik was inducted into the  Smart Cities Mission  of the Union Ministry for Urban Development. This mission sought to create 100 new smart cities in India with a focus on smaller second-tier cities. Nashik's bid for inclusion became successful during the 2nd round of competitive funding allocations. The Nashik smart city proposal focuses on a few strategic areas – favouring the cultural heritage of the city for revenue generation; building a resilient economy; improving mobility within the city; and improving transparency of governance. The proposal also follows the Pune and Bangalore model in order to attract the global IT industry and to emerge as the next driver of ICT.

• The parts of the city designated for area-based development and pan-city interventions are meant to serve as 'lighthouses' to the rest of the city as well as to other non-nominated cities. 

• The smart city proposal is filled with references to developing "a compact city". This includes increasing walkability, reducing commute times, and promoting dense and mixed land use. This is encapsulated in the idea of vertical development.

• Speed as an imaginary: Nashik Municipality continues to see congestion and traffic flow as the major problem affecting the city.

The river and its vicinity however, remains central to the smart city imaginary of a blend of traditional and modern as mentioned by the CEO of Nashik Municipal Smart City Development Corporation Limited (NMSCDCL).

Click on interactive map below to read about the smart city projects in the proposal

The organisational Chart of Smart City Mission based on the ministry guidelines. The SPV or Special Purpose Vehicle formed by the winning municipality is the central actor co-coordinating with all other institutional actors to plan and execute the projects. However the actual set of institutions and flow of power differs in each city due to the diverse and complex political and institutional landscape in India.

One of the dominant themes that has emerged in the execution of smart city projects in Nashik is that of contestations between different agencies – both state and state-adjacent. The future of the projects and their successful implementation depends on how well these agencies coordinate between themselves.

Click on the interactive organogram of governance below to read more about these roles.

A robust civil society and rights-based politics

Nashik is home to a host of civil society groups which take an active interest in the urban infrastructure projects of the city. The Goda Ghat in particular has featured prominently in civil activism agendas. The issues range from the reclamation of concretized 'kunds' (pre-existing ponds deemed sacred in mythology) and treatment of industrial effluents to restrictions on the use of the river for ritual purposes. Civil society groups have filed  Public Interest Litigation  in the Mumbai High court which in turn ordered a comprehensive study for the conservation of the river.

In 2014 the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) published a report on integrated river management and improvement of environmental status in the Nashik city region. Due to continued civil society activism de-concretisation of the Godavari river bed started in 2020, which will open up the ancient water sources and streams. A new future awaits the river and those who are linked to it through livelihoods and spirituality.

The following examples of voices from Goda Ghat highlighted the connected web of relations between historical, spiritual and economic interdependence.

Smart Road

The 'smart road' is a site of contestation, as a prominent physical manifestation of the smart city aspiration of Nashik. As one of the first smart city projects to be implemented, it has come into controversy over the delays and disruptions to everyday life that have accompanied its execution. Many deemed it to be an unnecessary project as the stretch of road selected for this was already a well-maintained one.

The following are some short reflections and lessons learnt from Nashik.

A significant pitch in Nashik’s Smart city proposal was to address the apparent unsustainability of its economy in terms of potential for job creation. As such, Nashik’s strategy is to leverage its existing architectural heritage and cultural capital as a site of pilgrimage, as well as improving city services (e.g. water and roads) to attract investment into its stagnant IT sector. 

Meanwhile, the already existing, everyday economy of the city, which includes the work of street vendors and auto-drivers is side-lined to make space for Smart City regeneration projects. The municipality is designating no-vending zones, attempting to relocate bazaars, and auto-rickshaw stands are being demolished to make way for the Smart Road construction and Riverfront development, putting livelihoods at risk.

 SDG 8 , which aims to, “Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all” is relevant here. The plan to foreground the city’s cultural heritage and invest in sustainable tourism is very much in line with target  8.9  (“devise and implement policies to promote sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture and products”). However, this should not be at the cost of existing, informal economies.

At the riverfront, development should lead to sustainable tourism and not displace the various communities and their multiple claims to the ghat space. The municipality and smart city corporation can establish direct channels of communication with the representatives of the vendors and drivers to negotiate agreeable modes of operating the area.

How is heritage understood in the context of Smart City planning and the UN’s SDGs? In Nashik Smart City planners are keen to focus on the value of assets deemed as ‘high’ heritage like temples, the architectural charm of the old colonial centre, and the river as a site for pilgrimage as a means to capitalise on such assets. No doubt, this is in line with  SDG 11.4  which refers to the protection and safeguarding of cultural and natural heritage. Moreover, our community asset mapping (CAM) workshops found that our participants similarly value the old city streets, temples, and rivers. 

However, CAM participants also put a lot of emphasis on the value of city amenities like public spaces, and especially water supply and sewage management systems. As such, assets like these should be considered as city heritage, important and valuable in many aspects of everyday life in the city. Certainly, Nashik’s Smart City proposal includes the implementation of a smart water system to improve efficiency and distribution (in alignment with  SDG target 6.5 ) to assist in the city’s economic growth. However, what is missing here is the means to frame or value such assets – beyond either the environmental services they provide or to means to sustain economic growth – as heritage.

The Nashik Smart City proposal discusses the linked themes of environment and sustainability in relation to the city’s water and sewerage systems, and concerns about them not being able to meet the demands of a growing city. As such, the proposal stresses the importance of upgrading to meet the demands of growth on the city’s resources. That is, water is understood as a material resource that should be properly protected, managed, and distributed. Furthermore, in Nashik where the Godavari River is a place of pilgrimage during the Kumbh Mela, water holds a spiritual significance, constituting a spiritual urban ecology.

A significant point of controversy in discussions about the development of the riverside area is the concretisation of the river. This was done in 2003 to prevent incidents of drowning during the Kumbh Mela. This was a controversial move in the city as this resulted in the blocking of natural aquifers and posed a threat to the sensitive ecology of the river. Since then, there have been ongoing efforts on the part of activists and civil-society organizations to de-concretize the river-bed and restore the underlying fresh-water wells. SDG  target 6.6  prioritises the restoration of such ecosystems. However, whilst there were some that would be sympathetic to this approach in our asset mapping workshop focusing on the Godavari River, others were more imagined a future marked by increased damming and diversion of water for human needs.

In smart city projects, ‘smartness’ is often apprehended as the (retro)fitting of digital technologies in the form of sensor rich and computerised systems for security, traffic management, refuse processing, water and sewerage management, centralisation of city operations, and so on. It is marketed as a digital age upgrade to analogue, inefficient urban infrastructure. At face value these projects seem to align with SDG targets that encourage technological upgrading (see 8.2) and increasing access to information (see 9c). However, often this framing fails to properly recognise the digital waves that have already permeated urban space, not in the form of Integrated Command and Control Centres (ICCC) or Smart Bus stops, but in the availability of low-cost smartphones and the ubiquity of mobile data. In Nashik, the disruption caused by the construction of a Smart Road to replace what some citizens see as a perfectly functional piece of existing infrastructure is a point of frustration.

If you enjoyed interacting with this Storymap, please check out our other Storymaps on Jalandhar and Shimla below.