Nagpur’s so-called “Smart City” plan just proved how public money can be spectacularly wasted when incompetence meets ambition. In 2019, the Nagpur Smart and Sustainable Development Corporation Limited (NSSDCL) proudly installed 65 high-tech public kiosks across the city, promising seamless civic services, ticket bookings, and even real-time transport tracking. Fast forward to today—not a single kiosk is functional. In fact, if sources are to be believed, they never worked in the first place.
This reporter visited multiple kiosks and found them in a state of utter ruin. These ATM-like booths, once hailed as revolutionary, now serve as makeshift bars, littered with beer and liquor bottles. The “state-of-the-art” machines have been vandalized beyond recognition. Some screens still glow, but with no internet, they are as useful as a rock. The much-touted “panic button”? It rings alarms only in the minds of taxpayers wondering where their money vanished.
Authorities blew ₹2 crore on a fancy software system without bothering to ensure basic essentials like electricity, internet connectivity, or security. The kiosks were supposed to provide critical services—bill payments, civic issue reporting, ticket bookings—but hilariously, they lacked even a printer. Meanwhile, mobile phones had already made such kiosks obsolete before they were even installed.
Predictably, the whole project collapsed under its own incompetence. Had officials used common sense, these machines could have been salvaged, perhaps as ticket vending units like those at railway stations. Instead, they now stand as neon-lit tombstones of yet another failed government stunt.
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