The meeting of the Consultative Committee of Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs was held today in the Parliament House Annexe, New Delhi.  The Agenda item of the meeting was “Smart Cities Mission”. Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs, Shri HardeepPuri chaired the meeting.

Briefing about the Smart Cities Mission, Shri Puri said that the main objective of the Mission, launched on 25^th June, 2021, is to promote cities that provide core infrastructure, clean and sustainable environment and give a decent quality of life to their citizens through the application of ‘Smart Solutions”.  The Mission aims to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life through comprehensive work on social, economic, physical and institutional pillars of the city.  100 cities have been selected to be developed as smart cities through a two-stage National competition.

Smart Cities Mission is a centrally sponsoredscheme under which the Central Government will provide financial support to the extent of ₹48000 crores over 5 years i.e. on anaverage ₹100 crores per city per year and an equal amount of matching basis is to be provided by the State/ULB.  Emphasis has been given on the participation of private sector through public private partnerships.  Aggregating at national level, these proposals contained more than 5000 projects worth over ₹2,00,000 crores.  Mission has a two-pronged strategy consisting of Pan-city and Area-Based development project. Implementation at the city level is being done by Special Purpose Vehicle(SPV) created for the purpose.  There is no template or universally accepted definition of the Smart City.  Therefore conceptualization of Smart City depends on the level of development,willingness to change and reform resources and aspirations of the city  residents. 

The overall progress of the Mission as on 12 November, 2021 shows great momentum in execution.  Over 6452 projects worth ₹184,998 crores have been tendered.  Of this, work orders have been issued for close to 5809 projects worth ₹156571 crores of which 3131 projects worth around ₹53,175

crore have been completed. Since the launch of the Mission, a total of ₹. 27,234 crores have been released by the Government of India to 100 cities under the Mission. The progress of the Mission inthese cities is done on a regular basis by State level High Powered Steering Committee.

The Mission has launched several initiatives that will not only ensure integrated development across variousaspects of urban development but also help lay long-term foundationfor good quality urbanization in the country.  Some of the initiatives are:

1. Ease of the Living Index
2. Municipal Performance Index
3. City GDP Framework
4. Climate Smart Cities Assessment Framework
5. Data Maturity  Assessment Framework
6. ICCC Maturity Assessment Framework
7. Data City Strategy
8. India Urban Observatory
9. India Urban Data Exchange
10. Smart Cities Open Data Initiative
11. National Urban Innovation Stack
12. National Urban Digital Mission
13. ICT standards
14. India Cycles4Change (IC4C) Challenge
15. Streets4people Challenge
16. Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge
17. Transport 4 all (T4All) Challenge
18. EatSmart Cities  Challenge
19. City Investments to Innovate, Integrate and Sustain (CITIIS) Challenge
20. Climate Centre for Cities
21. Climate Smart Cities Alliance
22. India Smart Cities Fellowship Program
23. The urban Learning Internship Program

The Minister also informed that smart cities have played important role in managing the crises during Covid-19. With Integrated Command and Control Centres being usedas Covid-19 War Room, they have helped in the area of information, communication, management and preparedness.

Hon’ble MPs made many valuable suggestions during the meeting.

 

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YB/SS

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