82 SPVs Formed to accelerate Smart Cities projects
Published: Jan 16, 2018
By TIOLCorp News Service
NEW DELHI, JAN 16, 2018: WHILE addressing the Smart Cities Summit organized by the FICCI, MoS for Housing & Urban Affairs, Mr Hardeep S. Puri informed that the Smart Cities Mission is progressing at a brisk pace as 90 cities have been selected so far and the selection of ten more cities will be announced shortly. Mr Puri also stated that there are about 3000 projects worth Rs.1,40,000 crores at various stages of implementation. According to him this remains one of the fastest ever project implementations at this scale and geographic spread in urban sector, which will have a ‘Lighthouse' effect.
Mr Puri also informed that this is also first time that cities have created an institutional mechanism (SPVS) at the city level. Till now 82 SPVs have been formed and considering the capacity gaps existing at cities, this is not a small achievement by any standards. For the first-time Cities are also thinking in terms of converging the objectives, resources and processes of different projects taken up by various agencies towards realization of a common vision. Today every project taken up at the cities are appraised by smart city SPVs in terms of public value it creates. This has led to an improved coordination and efficiency in delivery of services at cities. For the first time in the urban scenario in India there has been an emphasis to leverage the grant fund given by government through innovative financing mechanisms. The 90 smart cities have proposed to leverage the fund by 2.5 times through internal revenue mobilization, value capture financing, municipal bond issue etc. Cities need to work as start-up and leverage their financial resources. Smart city mission has been heralding this transformation.