Directions: Read the passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words/ phrases are given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.
Imagine yourself in an Indian city where every home is connected to internet, gas, water and electricity via a smart grid. All citizens are linked to each other and to civic facilities in real time. The city uses renewable energy and its transport systems are controlled via central command centres to reduce traffic and pollution. In this city, there are no offensive smells, no noise, no dust, no heaving crowds. It is a smart city, the ideal city. And it exists: on paper. Its name is Dholera, and it is a key part of what you might call India’s 21st-century utopian urban experiment. Economists argue that the country desperately needs new cities: its urban population is expected to rise from 28% in 2001 to almost 36% in 2026, bringing the total number of people living in its cities and urban regions to 590 million.
To accommodate this growth, suggests a McKinsey report, India will need 20 to 30 new cities in the next decade alone. The state’s solution has been to push for 24 new “smart cities” along high-speed regional transport networks. Dholera is one of these. At 903 sq km, it would be twice the size of Mumbai. It is planned in the “influence zone” of a mega-infrastructure project, the Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor, which will link India’s political capital Delhi with its economic capital Mumbai, and therefore, so the thinking goes, spur economic growth in the region. The Dholera that actually exists, however, is something else entirely. A casual visitor might see the small sign along the highway pointing in the direction of Dholera. But they might also, if they take the turn-off, be disappointed: for several months of the year, they will find a vast, low-lying area, mostly submerged under seawater. The rest of the year, they will see the classic cracked-earth look of salt flats. Dotting this landscape are farm buildings, village huts and small reservoirs storing rainwater that is used to irrigate fields of cumin, millet, wheat and cotton. They will see a vast landscape with about 40,000 people living in an ecological region that loses 1cm of its coastline to the sea every day. They might then understand that Dholera is not yet a “place”: it is still a terrain of possibilities.
P M Modi has declared Dholera and other proposed smart cities in the region to be “building blocks of a global Gujarat”, envisioned on the lines of Shanghai. And to make sure it happens, he shepherded in a new Special Investment Region (SIR) Act in March 2009. The act gives more power to the state to acquire land for building smart cities like Dholera. Another scenario is that Dholera is significantly downsized due to a lack of investors and stripped of its “smart” credentials, to become just another industrial township along the Delhi-Mumbai corridor. It becomes one of those backdoor cities to India’s urbanisation and economic growth, where polluting industries are located to keep them away from Delhi and Mumbai. It remains, in other words, a far cry from the smart city presented in the glossy marketing images.
1. Which of the following is the cause of planned discontinuation of smart city Project? Reply on the basis of the given passage.
1) SEZ rules of Government of India.
2) Because the government of India had gone bust due to the global recession.
3) The master plan is not successful.
4) Due to paucity of investors and accreditation.
5) All of the above
2. Which of the following is definitely true with respect to smart city? Reply in the context of given passage.
1) Government of India has envisioned the concept of building 100 new smart cities in the country.
2) Government looks forward to the smart cities that will have better facilities, better connectivity and better environment.
3) India will be the 'first smart nation' of the world.
4) All of the above
5) None of these
3. According to the author, smart city project is imagined on the model of-
1) Singapore
2) Shanghai
3) Japan
4) Russia
5) None of these.
4. According to the passage, which of the following is/are true about the features of smart cities in India?
1) A smart city is an urban region that is highly advanced terms of overall infrastructure, sustainable real estate, communication and market viability.
2) It is a city where information technology is the principal infrastructure and the basis for providing essential services to residents.
3) There are many technological platform involved including automated sensor networks and data centres.
4) All of the above
5) None of these
5. What does the author mean by the term 'Influence Zone'.
1) The maximum extension of the area of influenced.
2) It will depend on the particular area.
3) The area which is covered by greenery.
4) An ellipse inscribed in the cross section
5) None of these
Direction : Choose the word/group of words which is MOST SIMILAR in meaning to the word/ group of words printed in bold as used in the passage-
6. Spur
1) Check
2) Prevent
3) Prompt
4) Motion
5) Trigger
7. Envisioned
1) Complimented
2) Conceived
3) Slurred
4) Taunted
5) Quipped
8. Desperately
1) Tranquil
2) Careful
3) Hopeful
4) Frantic
5) Sane
Direction: Choose the word/group of words which is MOST OPPOSITE in meaning of the word/group of words printed in bold as used in the passage-
9. Utopian
1) Abstract
2) Real
3) Grandiose
4) Illusory
5) Unfeasible
10. Backdoor
1) Common
2) Classified
3) Inside
4) Inside
5) Mysterious
Answers:
Answers:
1. 4
2. 2
3. 2
4. 4
5. 1
6. 5
7. 2
8. 4
9. 2
10. 1
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