U.S. MNC Consortium To Aid Smart City Operations In India

NEW DELHI: Ahead of U.S. President Barack Obama's India visit, American business giants have come together and formed a consortium to address the infrastructure, energy and smart city projects coming up in India.

Multi-national companies (MNCs) including Cisco, IBM, 3M, EMC, GE, Honeywell, KPMG, Otis, Timken and Louis Berger have formed the consortium to provide wings to the joint vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Obama for strengthening bilateral commercial relationship, a trade body said Sunday.

This development follows the formation of the U.S.-India Infrastructure Collaboration Platform, which was set up during Modi's visit to the U.S. recently. The platform is supported by the U.S. department of commerce, ministry of finance, and the American Chamber of Commerce in India, an association of American companies in India that is driving this initiative said in a statement.

A capability deck offering U.S. technologies and spelling out project solutions has been prepared by the consortium, it said.

Anil Menon, president, Smart+Connected Communities and deputy chief globalization officer, Cisco Inc, has taken over as chairman of the consortium.

"The consortium has been set up to collectively look at business opportunities in these sectors and aims at identifying and bidding for projects across the country. Large projects require strong Indian partners along with financing solutions to realistically move forward," said Amcham executive director Ajay Singha.

"The consortium will jointly interface with governments at the state and central levels and operate as a cohesive group offering multiple solutions to suit a diverse bunch of requirements," he added.

India is expected to spend a trillion dollars through 2017 for infrastructure development in the country. 

Under a recent MOU, both India and the U.S. intend to facilitate and improve the bilateral commercial relationship to benefit their economies.

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