As per the highlighted plans, the pilot Smart City called Bhubaneswar Town Centre District (BTCD) will be built in an area of 985 acres with a population of 46,000.
To provide smart and efficient facilities to this city, an amount of more than Rs4,500 crore will be spent, Rs3,500 crore, of which will be a loan from the World Bank.
“This means about one million rupees will be invested per head in this area, 78 per cent of which would be a loan. In other words, if each citizen of the Smart City has to pay back for these smart services she/he receives, she/he has to pay back Rs7, 80,000 with interest to the World Bank. Is it a smart ideaIJ” asked Water Initiatives Odisha (WIO) convenor Ranjan Panda. The WIO is a leading water and environment watchdog of the State.
“Has the State Government got any revenue generation plan from the Smart City area to be able to repay the loans or all this burden will be transferred to common citizensIJ” he asked further.
He added, “The Government must make public the revenue plans for the Smart City area and assure the common citizens of the State that they don’t have to subsidise for the smart services to a small fraction of the capital city.”
In a State that is still not able to provide the promised 35 per cent irrigation to all its farmers and where farmer suicide cases have been increasing, how wise it is to spend so much of money (majority of which is loan) that is almost 12.5 per cent more than the entire yearly budget of the Water Resources DepartmentIJ” Panda questioned.