Every city should draft vision document for next 10 years: Venkaiah Naidu

MUMBAI: Grants for states and municipal corporations in the area of urban development will depend on their rating and performance, Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu said here today even as he asked every city to prepare a vision document for the coming 10 years based on what he termed was the 'PPPP' model.

"Central funding will depend on the performance of state governments and the municipal corporations. There has to be a rating for both the states as well as the corporations. Who will give money without credit worthiness?

"Every city should prepare a vision document for the next 10 years that will envisage a comprehensive development plan. The plan should be prepared after taking into consideration the suggestions of the people of the city as the development is for them.

"We will need to adopt a new model of people-public- private-partnership (PPPP) for making cities more sustainable and smarter," Naidu told a gathering of 115 municipal commissioners at a consultative workshop on urban governance.

He said the states and local bodies should also have ratings on the basis of sanitation, open land, greenery, affordability, among others. States and civic bodies should be self-sustaining enough to take up development projects on their own, he added.

"If civic bodies need funds, they go to the state governments, which in turn seek assistance from the Centre. But providing funds for all the projects is not possible for the Centre. Therefore, we must be self-sustainable enough to develop cities by leveraging their assets," Naidu said.

The minister said that levying taxes was no crime but not utilising the money thus collected was definitely one.

"The key to success is transparency through digitisation of records and assets. If we do not harass the public, they will pay their taxes," Naidu said.

He also said that apart from the initiative for the development 100 smart cities envisioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his ministry was planning to rejuvenate 500 cities with a population of more than one lakh.

"I will be holding a conclave of mayors of 500 cities across the country with a population of more than one lakh. The idea is to rejuvenate these cities. For implementing any idea, political backing is required. They should be sensitised about the needs of the city," Naidu said.

Noting that the 'Swachh Bharat' campaign aimed to provide sanitation facilities in all 4,041 statutory towns in the country over the next five years, he said local icons, corporates and the public has to be taken on board to ensure the success of the cleanliness mission.

Naidu also released the first instalment of funds of about Rs 230 crore under the Swachh Bharat mission for the western and central states -- Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Goa -- for the building of individual and community toilets and for solid-waste management.

While Maharashtra received Rs 135 crore, Gujarat got Rs 40.95 crore followed by Chhattisgarh (Rs 30.79 crore), Madhya Pradesh (Rs 18.81 crore) and Goa (Rs 2.59 crore).