To enhance greater competitiveness and ensure achievement of targets under the ambitious Smart City Mission, the Centre in partnership with the World Bank, has announced a performance-based incentive of a whopping US $480 million that will be up for grabs for the 90 smart cities. The amount is over and above the Rs 1,000 crore funds being doled out to the selected smart cities under the Mission. Interestingly, the works on Smart City projects are not visible on the ground as it is still in the stage of planning.
Top sources told The Pioneer that under this Programme, well-performing Smart Cities will receive additional grants from Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) against a set of predetermined performance parameters.
"The proposed MoHUA-World Bank India Smart Cities Program (ISCP) has a total outlay of US$500 million of which around US$480 million will be available as performance based incentive grants, and the balance would be available for specific demand-driven capacity building and project management support at the State level as well as at the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) level," said the sources. According to sources, States/Union Territories (UTs) will need to demonstrate that all Smart City SPVs in their State meet all mandatory conditions. All information furnished by States/UTs/SPVs should be presented as of 30th November 30, 2017. The last date for receiving the submission from the State/UT is December 11, 2017.
The MoHUA has approved projects worth Rs 1,89,259 crore in 90 smart cities. Of these, Rs 1,56,600 crore would be spent on area based development. Presently, out of 90 Smart Cities, 73 cities have incorporated city-level Special Purpose Vehicles 9SPVs) for implementation of the mission. For designing, developing, managing and implementing the Smart City Projects, Project Management Consultants have been set up in 73 cities. According to the MoHUA, around 261 impactful ventures worth Rs 31,112 crore and 370 Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects worth around Rs 32,410 crore have been identified for the States to start taking action immediately.
The Ministry has asked the States and UTs to focus on these projects. According to the Ministry sources, setting up of SPVs to implement the works took a long time. The Mission was launched by the Narendra Modi Government in June 2015.
"Failure of any SPV in the State/UT to meet the mandatory conditions will lead to exclusion of all SPVs in that State from participating in the proposed program. The World Bank Grants will be open to only the first 60 SPVs selected under the Smart Cities Mission for the first phase of the program. For this purpose, each interested State/UTs will be required to submit information for only those Smart Cities which were selected in the first three rounds (including fast-track round)," said the sources.
Smart city' is a city equipped with basic infrastructure to give a decent quality of life, a clean and sustainable environment through application of some smart solutions. Creating smart cities would entail development of basic infrastructure like adequate water supply, electricity supply, sustainable sanitation and solid waste management mechanism, efficient urban mobility, affordable housing and ensuring robust IT connectivity and e-governance. The implementation of the SCM at the city level is done by a SPV created for the purpose. The SPV plans, appraises, approves, releases funds, implements, manages, monitors and evaluate the projects. Each city has a SPV headed by a full time CEO, has nominees from Centre, State and Urban local Board on its Board.