Special Purpose Vehicles formed for implementation of Smart City Plans ; MP, Rajasthan take lead

Special Purpose Vehicles formed for implementation of Smart City Plans ; MP, Rajasthan take lead

23 Losers of Smart City Competition to meet 20 winners for peer learning

Shri Venkaiah Naidu to address the cities on challenges ahead

Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan have taken the lead in setting up Special Purpose Vehicles (SPV) for the implementation of Smart City Plans of the cities who have won in the first round of competition for selection of cities. Ministry of Urban Development has been informed that SPVs have been set up for Jabalpur, Indore and Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh and Jaipur and Udaipur in Rajasthan. These cities have been among the first batch of 20 winners of Smart City Challenge Competition announced on January 29,2016.

Ministry has also been informed that SPVs for the remaining 15 cities will be formed in the next two weeks. Ministry of Urban Development will release Rs.200 cr for each of the 20 selected cities only after SPVs are set up.

SPVs to be registered under the Companies Act,2013 will have 50:50 equity by the states and respective urban local bodies. Private equity is also allowed but the management control will rest with the Governments only.

SPVs are required to be set up under Smart City Mission Guidelines to ensure timely and efficient execution of plans with operational freedom. They approve, sanction and execute the projects besides mobilizing resources from various sources.

Madhya Pradesh has set up a 12 member SPV for each of the three cities. Respective District Collector will be the Chairman of the Board and respective Municipal Commissioner as Executive Director. Other members include representatives of central and state governments, nominee of the Mayor, 2 Independent Directors, representatives of DISCOMs, Public Health Engineering Department etc.

Rajasthan has set up a 11 Member SPV for Jaipur and a 13 Member body for Udaipur. Principle Secretary (Local Self Government) is the Chairman in both the cases. Mayor will be the Vice-Chairman and Municipal Commissioner will the Chief Executive Officer till a regular CEO is appointed. Representatives of central and state governments, 2 Independent Directors will also be on the Board.

Meanwhile, Ministry of Urban Development is organizing a day long workshop on Monday i.e February 22, 2016 where in 23 cities participating in the ‘Fast Track Competition’ will interact with first batch of 20 smart city winners for ‘peer learning’ about making winning proposals. One top ranked city from each of the 23 States and UTs that could not win in the first round are participating in this accelerated round of competition, under which these 23 cities have to submit revised proposals to the Ministry of Urban Development by April 15 this year.

These 23 cities will be advised on how to bridge the identified gaps in their Smart City Plans earlier submitted and evaluated in the first round of competition. Areas required to be improved include-financing plans, convergence of different schemes of central and stage governments, smart solutions and frugal solutions, consistency of area development plans etc.

Minister of Urban Development Shri M.Venkaiah Naidu will address the representatives of 43 cities.

The 20 winners will discuss next steps regarding operationalisation of SPVs project formulation and resource mobilization.

Experts and representatives of mentoring institutions like Centre for Science and Environment, Institute of Spatial Planning and Environment Research, Indian Institute of Human Settlements, All India Institute of Local Self Government, Administrative Staff College of India and hand holding institutions like world Bank, AFD, DFID, GIZ and Asian Development Bank will guide the winners and losers on the next steps.

The 23 cities participating in the ‘Fast Track Competition’ are : Warangal (Telangana) ranked 23 in the first round of competition, Chandigarh(24), Lucknow(29), New Town Kolkata (30), Panaji (32), Pasighat, Arunachal Pradesh(39), Dharamshala, HP(59), Raipur(62), Bhagalpur, Bihar(65), Karnal, Haryana(66), Shillong(70), Namchi, Sikkim(71), Port Blair(72), Diu (74), Oulgaret, Puducherry (75), Silvassa (78), Imphal (83), Ranchi (84), Agartala (85), Kohima (90), Aizawl (93), Kavaratti (95) and Dehradun (97).

Among the first batch of winners, Bhopal which was ranked 20 scored 55.47% marks in the first round of competition. Warangal scored 54.79 marks to lose in the competition by just 0.68 marks while Dehradun which was ranked at the bottom of 97 scored 38.13% losing in the competition by a margin of 17.34 marks.

At the workshop on Monday, these 23 cities will be assisted to bridge the gap so as to come to the level of marks scored by Bhopal and beyond.