Smart City: Selected cities focus on generating resources

With the mobilisation of massive resources being a key aspect in the implementation of the Smart City plan, convergence of various central and state government schemes, commercialisation of land and working out of PPP models are some of the measures to be taken up towards that end by the selected cities.

A day after the Centre announced the first list of 20 cities to be taken up under the initiative, a senior Urban Development Ministry official said that resource mobilisation is one of the key aspects for its implementation.

Bhubaneswar, Pune, Jaipur and Kochi are among the 20 cities that were selected in the first batch to be developed as smart cities.

Each selected city will be given Rs 500 crore over a period of five years by the Centre with their respective states expected to make a matching contribution to execute various schemes covering infrastructure development, improvement of civic amenities, transportation systems, etc.

A selected city will get Rs 200 crore in the first year and Rs 100 crore in each of the next three years besides the matching grants from the states.

Convergence of various central and state government schemes, land monetisation, loans, internal resources of urban local bodies, tax on area development properties, PPP and rationalisation of taxes are some of the measures to be undertaken by cities under the project.