The Bilaspur Municipal Corporation (BMC) will be running a mega social media campaign for soliciting ideas from the general public for participating in the Smart City Challenge. The campaign would comprise opening a facebook page with daily content posting and timeline picture updates.
The campaign on twitter would comprise daily tweets, comments tracking and responding. The other media tools to be utilised are Google Plus, Youtube & Vimeo, blogs, Whatsapp and Instagram, officials stated.
A document for states released by the Union Ministry of Urban Development for the ‘Smart City Mission’ reads like this: ‘ The Smart City Mission will be operated as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) and the Central Government proposes to give financial support to the Mission to the extent of Rs 48,000 crores over five years i.e. on an average Rs 100 crore per city per year. ‘
An equal amount, on a matching basis, will have to be contributed by the State/UlB; therefore, nearly Rupees one lakh crore of Government/UlB funds will be available for Smart Cities development, it stated
The project cost of each Smart City proposal will vary depending upon the level of ambition, model and capacity to execute and repay. It is anticipated that substantial funds will be required to implement the Smart City proposal and towards this end, Government grants of both the Centre and State will be leveraged to attract funding from internal and external sources.
The success of this endeavour will depend upon the robustness of SPV’s revenue model and comfort provided to lenders and investors. A number of State Governments have successfully set up financial intermediaries (such as Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Orissa, Punjab, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar) which can be tapped for support and other States may consider some similar set up in their respective States. Some form of guarantee by the State or such a financial intermediary could also be considered as instrument of comfort referred to above. It is expected that a number of schemes in the Smart City will be taken up on PPP basis and the SPVs have to accomplish the task.
The Government is not prescribing any particular model to be adopted by the Smart Cities. The approach is not ‘one-size-fits-all’; each city has to formulate its own concept, vision, mission and plan (proposal) for a Smart City that is appropriate to its local context, resources and levels of ambition.
Accordingly, they have to choose their model of Smart City and answer the question: What kind of Smart City do they wantIJ For this, cities will prepare their Smart City Proposal (SCP) containing the vision, plan for mobilisation of resources and intended outcomes in terms of infrastructure up-gradation and smart applications.
During the preparation of the Smart Cities Mission, a number of foreign Governments have offered to provide Technical Assistance (TA) support.
Additionally, other external organizations, including bilateral and multilateral institutions, as well as domestic organizations have suggested to the Ministry of Urban Development that they can give technical assistance support. These include World Bank, ADB, JICA, USTDA, AFD, KfW, DFID, UN Habitat, UNIDO, etc. Such organizations, which have experience in the field of Smart City development, can also extend support to the States/UTs as hand-holding agencies in preparing the SCPs. The Ministry will assist in tying up the arrangements.
The implementation of the Mission at the City level will be done by a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) created for the purpose. The SPV will plan, appraise, approve, release funds, implement, manage, operate, monitor and evaluate the Smart City development projects. Each Smart City will have a SPV which will be headed by a full time CEO and have nominees of Central Government, State Government and UlB on its Board.
The States/UlBs shall ensure that, (a) a dedicated and substantial revenue stream is made available to the SPV so as to make it self-sustainable and could evolve its own credit worthiness for raising additional resources from the market and (b) Government contribution for Smart City is used only to create infrastructure that has public benefit outcomes. The execution of projects may be done through joint ventures, subsidiaries, public-private partnership (PPP), turnkey contracts, etc. suitably dovetailed with revenue streams.
The SPV will be a limited company incorporated under the Companies Act, 2013 at the city-level, in which the State/UT and the UlB will be the promoters having 50:50 equity shareholding.
The private sector or financial institutions could be considered for taking equity stake in the SPV, provided the shareholding pattern of 50:50 of the State/UT and the UlB is maintained and the State/UT and the UlB together have majority shareholding and control of the SPV.
Funds provided by the Government of India in the Smart Cities Mission to the SPV will be in the form of tied grant and kept in a separate Grant Fund. These funds will be utilized only for the purposes for which the grants have been given and subject to the conditions laid downby the MoUD.
The State Government and the UlB will determine the paid up capital requirements of the SPV commensurate with the size of the project, commercial financing required and the financing modalities. To enable the building up of the equity base of the SPV and to enable UlBs to contribute their share of the equity capital, GoI grants will be permitted to be utilized as UlBs share of equity capital in the SPV.
Initially, to ensure a minimum capital base for the SPV, the paid up capital of the SPV should be such that the UlB’s share is at least equal to Rs.100 crore with an option to increase it to the full amount of the first instalment of Funds provided by GoI (Rs.194 crore).
With a matching equity contribution by State/UlB, the initial paid up capital of the SPV will thus be Rs. 200 crore (Rs. 100 crore of GoI contribution and Rs 100 crore of State/UT share). Since the initial GoI contribution is Rs.194 crore, along with the matching contribution of the State Government, the initial paid up capital can go up to Rs.384 crore at the option of the SPV.
The paid up capital may be enhanced in the subsequent years as per project requirements, with the provision mentioned above ensuring that UlB is enabled to match its shareholding in the SPV with that of the State/UT.