BANGALORE: Narendra Modi’s ambitious Smart Cities scheme will be driven by Public-Private Partnership (PPP) as the Ministry of Urban Development aims to initiate more urban renewal and smart governance projects on this model.
Urban Development Secretary Shankar Aggarwal said, "We are in the process of identifying cities to be part of the Smart Cities project and the process will be completed in a month."
Shankar also added all state capitals and union territories, including satellite towns of all metros to the list. More mediocre cities and hill stations will also be part of this scheme.
According to sources, the Smart City scheme is going to hit the road in the coming six months. Venkaiah Naidu, Urban Development Minister, along with his ministry officials is set to complete all mandatory processes before the winter session of the parliament. He told the officers that there is an immediate need to set targets for the mega launch and completion.
The government is seriously considering all options that can drive the scheme, including government providing Viable Gap Funding (VGF) of different components for these smart cities.
"There is a tremendous interest generated over the project and now every city wants to become part of the smart city scheme," said Aggarwal.
However, government will set conditions for transparency by putting all information in public domain, time bound service delivery, and digitization for any city to qualify for this project.
On how the scheme would help rejuvenate hill towns, Aggarwal said, "All our existing hill stations were developed by Britishers and today, places like Mussoorie are overcrowded. So, we are exploring the option of developing Smart Cities in these areas as greenfield projects, while for the rest it will be brownfield project."
The scheme is expected to provide facilities like uninterrupted water supply, modern sewerage system, solid waste management, and infrastructure development among others.
Estimated investment requirements for providing these services is around Rs 7.5 lakh crore over 20 years, which means an annual requirement of Rs 35,000 crores.
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