NITI Aayog only a facilitator in smart city mission: Bibek Debroy

NEW DELHI: States would have to plan themselves on urban development and smart city mission, and NITI Aayog would be a facilitator to them, a Member of central think tank said today.

Speaking at workshop on 'Transforming Urban India: Developing Smart & Sustainable Cities', NITI Aayog Member Bibek Debroy said that the states would have to find out what they want to do for sustainable urban development.

"Why should NITI plan what should be done for the states. It is for the states to figure out what they want to do. And the NITI is there to facilitate that," Debroy said.

Also, it is for the citizens to decide what form of smartness they want in their cities, he added.

NITI Aayog today organised a workshop which was attended by nearly 100 representatives from 27 states belonging to urban development departments of the state governments and municipal corporations of various cities.

Participants highlighted the need for capacity building in all aspects of smart cities -- from concept to implementation -- and private sector's participation in the Mission.

They also raised concerns such as lack of implementation of the 74th Amendment (devolution of power to states), slum and poverty management, position and powers of Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) viz. ULBs.

Debroy said that the government is not going to decide a set of targets like that in Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM).

"What is significantly different about this way is that as compared to JnNURM, is not that the government is planning to do A, B, C, D. It is not that the government is going to spend X amount of resources....it is about states involving the private sector, involving citizens," he said.

"Levels of urbanisation in India is very low. They are low not in comparison with the developed countries, they are low in comparison with the levels of urbanisation even in developing countries," he said.

NITI Aayog CEO Sindhushree Khullar said at NITI Aayog government is looking for outcome-based programmes.

"We are not looking at input based programmes, we are looking at outcomes," she said.

She said collaboration and building bridges between the states and NITI Aayog is the only way so that transformation happens.