Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Tuesday said that 100 cities have been selected to be developed as smart cities through a two-stage National competition.
A meeting of the Consultative Committee of the 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, Hardeep Singh Puri chaired the meeting.
Briefing about the Smart Cities Mission, Mr Puri said that the main objective of the Mission, launched on June 25, 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," Union Minister said.
Smart Cities Mission is a centrally sponsored scheme under which the Central Government will provide financial support to the extent of 48000 crores over five years i.e. on an average 100 crores per city per year and an equal amount of matching basis is to be provided by the State/Urban Local Bodies (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 2,000,000 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.
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