Smart cities plan gets rolling: Bloomberg Philanthropies to help govt pick city list

NEW DELHI: Bloomberg Philanthropies will assist the union ministry of urban development in conducting the ‘Cities Challenge’ competition to select cities that will be provided financing under the government’s ambitious 100 Smart Cities plan.

The philanthropy initiative that was founded by former mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg will act as knowledge partner for the Smart Cities Mission and will assist the ministry in the design and implementation of the process for selection of cities, designing and delivery of a capacity development programme for applicant urban local bodies for participation in the competition based on selection of cities with focus on innovation and citizen participation in formulating smart city proposals and formulating and execution of effective communication and branding strategy for cities challenge to enable wider public participation.

The union cabinet had approved the mission for building 100 Smart Cities last month and had earmarked spending of Rs 48,000 crore by the centre over the next five years for providing an assistance of Rs 100 crore per year for each selected city.

“In the first phase of the selection of smart city aspirants, each state will nominate a set of cities based on urban population and number of statutory cities for inclusion under the Smart Cities Mission. This nomination will be based on a set of identified criteria to be suggested by the Ministry of Urban Development. All such 100 nominated cities will be rigorously scrutinized against identified criteria for extending financial support by the centre. Cities which are found to be deficient in some aspects would be given to address the same and participate in the next round of competition,” said a release by the ministry of urban development.

States and Urban Local Bodies will be required to match the contribution by the centre for the development of each city and mobilize additional resources required from various sources including through the PPP model. Accordingly, centre and states/Urban Local Bodies will spend about rupees one lakh crore on development of smart cities over the next five years.

Bloomberg Philanthropies has been involved in smart cities development programme in different parts of the world enabling selection of right and capable cities for their transformation as smart cities.