As a part of the ongoing stakeholder consultations for
effective implementation of the Smart City Mission in the country, Minister for
Urban Development M Venkaiah Naidu will be interacting with mayors, municipal
chairpersons and commissioners of 20 cities included in the developmental
mission from the 13 eastern and north-eastern states, and Chhattisgarh and
Jharkhand on September 12.
The government is organizing a workshop in New Town Kolkata, scheduled to be conducted on Saturday. This regional workshop on Smart Cities will also see in attendance the principal secretaries of Urban Development and other senior officials from the selected states.
Minister of State for Urban Development Babul Supriyo will
also be participating in the discussions of the workshop.
Venkiah Naidu will broadly outline the challenges to be addressed for building smart cities including the need for a forward looking and visionary leadership by both the elected and executive heads of these cities, need for urban governance reforms and an enabling environment for mobilization of resources required for Smart City Mission including through Public-Private-Partnership model.
20 Cities included in the Smart City Mission from these 13 states include : New Town Kolkata, Bidhanpur, Durgapur and Haldia from West Bengal, Muzaffarpur, Bhagalpur and Biharshariff from Bihar, Bhubaneswar and Rourkela from Odisha, Raipur and Bilaspur from Chattisgarh, Ranchi from Jharkhand, Namchi in Sikkim and the North-Eastern cities of Guwahaty, Pasighat(Arunachal Pradesh), Imphal, Shillong, Aizawl, Kohima and Agartala.
Each of these cities has been given Rs.2.00 crore each for preparation of city level Smart City Plans in the next three months. All the 100 city level plans will be evaluated based on a set of elaborate criteria in the second stage of City Challenge competition for identifying the top scoring 20 cities for financing during the current financial year.
The 20 cities have been nominated by the respective state governments after the first round of competition, further to evaluation of all urban local bodies in each state as per a set of criteria including the existing service levels, institutional and financial capacities and past track record in implementation of JNNURM projects and reforms undertaken.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched the Smart City
Mission on June 25 this year. The central government has made a provision of
Rs.48, 000 crore for five years to support the Smart City Mission through
central assistance of Rs.100 crore per city per year.
States and urban local bodies have to make a matching contribution and have to mobilize additional required resources through various sources including PPP model, loans from bilateral and multi-lateral agencies, municipal bonds, among others.
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