The Blinkit model of urban maintenance

In my travels to more developed nations than India, one of the few things that sticks out starkly as what we lack and what they have is a working system of urban maintenance. Their roads, footpaths (or, as they are often also called, sidewalks), signage, street lighting, drainage systems, waste disposal systems – and the like, you get the picture – are in a visible state of order and repair. In India, it is a rule that these exact same systems will be in a state of disrepair. The greatest travesty of living in modern urban India is that finding these basic elements in working order is a rare, pleasant surprise.

This morning, when I flipped out my phone to order a set of fruits for the next couple of days on Blinkit, I imagined a similar situation existing for the urban maintenance problem here. As the bell rang a few minutes in and a delivery agent – dressed smartly in a T-Shirt celebrating ISRO's Chandrayaan –appeared, I began devising a model to fix our problems of perpetual urban disrepair.

Before I describe it, a disclaimer: critics of "techno-solutionism" often claim that technology isn't the solution to civic problems. Without agreeing or disagreeing, I want to claim that what I am proposing – as you will see if you read further – isn't the mere application of technology. It involves better incentive structures to create a sustainable model of urban repair; something that the government has been unable to establish in our part of the world.

A further disclaimer: a perfectly valid criticism of this proposed model will be that this cannot be executed – that it is not practical to expect the government to be this benevolent, venture capitalists to be this conscientious, and citizens to act in good faith here. I have no response to that except that thoughts should probably continue to be expressed and explored even in the absence of imminent feasibility. Here's the step-by-step model:

1. Create a cooperative society of urban workers (plumbers, electricians, etc.) already employed in different government maintenance departments
2. All relevant government departments submit that they have no objection with this body conducting urban repair work in their areas of jurisdiction and charging a fee for doing so, given that the organisation is a cooperative body made up of its own employees
3. An alternative finance company provides initial capital in exchange for a minority stake Use the money to set up a "dark store" – but for all kinds of urban repairs (roads, signage, drainage, waste)
4. Create a technology intermediary in the middle which allows you to "order" repair for any urban issue
5. Workers show up in uniform, in minutes, and attend to your issue
6. Your Residential Welfare Association/Apartment Owners Association pays a usage based fee to the cooperative, minus a percentage withheld by the intermediary for technology and operations costs
7. Profit, and scale