Union Minister for Urban Development M Venkaiah Naidu said here on Saturday that it would be a daunting task for the Central and State Governments, urban local bodies and all other stakeholders including the urban citizens to make the prevailing excitement over the proposed smart cities, being witnessed among the people across the country, come true.
Addressing a conference on “Smart City: Delivery of Civic Services organised by Vijnan Bharati, here, Naidu said: “In one way, this excitement and soaring expectation (over the proposed smart cities) is a telling comment on the frustration over the urban experience in our country. It will be a daunting task for the Central and State Governments, urban local bodies and all other stakeholders including the urban citizens to make this excitement come true”.
Dwelling upon the challenges in provisioning the infrastructure —resources, technical and managerial competencies and an enabling regulatory and policy environment – required for creation of smart cities, Naidu said that the NDA Government proposed to promote a set of reforms encompassing urban governance and planning aimed at ushering in urban transformation through change management.
Naidu said that the urban reforms the Centre proposed to introduce included: e-governance, creation of a professional municipal cadre, urban planning through city development plans, devolution of functions and funds to urban local bodies, double entry accounting, revision of building bye-laws, improving revenue collections, credit rating, energy and water audit and cent per cent waste collection, transportation and disposal to ensure sanitation.
On the issue of the source of funding to build smart cities and ensure basic infrastructure in 500 other across the country, the Minister said that the Government would pursue the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model for resource mobilisation, with better Governance and institutional framework.
“The per capita annual revenue of all municipalities in the country is said to be Rs1,430 compared to expenditure commitment of Rs6,030, as reported by McKinsey Global Institute. This is a huge urban fiscal gap. There are no shortcuts to bridge this gap,” he said.
“The PPP model may not have done that well so far but this modal shall be made to succeed. There is a need for good governance and institutional framework for the success of PPP mode of resource mobilisation,” Naidu averred.
Naidu said that in a bid to recast the urban landscape of the country to make urban areas more livable and inclusive besides driving the economic growth, the Narendra Modi-led Government had recently approved a spending of about one lakh crore on urban development under two new urban missions over the next five years.