Minister Puri lists process of SPVs

India’s massive Smart Cities Mission will be implemented by dedicated Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), one for implementing each city, parliament was told recently.

“The implementation of the Smart Cities Mission is done by a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to be set up at city level in the form of a limited company under the Companies Act, 2013,” said Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs.

The SPV, to be promoted by the State/Union Territory (UT) and the Urban Local Body(ULB) jointly both having 50:50 equity shareholding.

After selection, each selected Smart City has to set up SPVs and start implementation of their Smart City Proposal, preparation of Detailed Project Reports (DPRs), tenders etc.

The SPV will convert the Smart City Proposal into projects through Project Management Consultants (PMCs) and implementation thereafter.

As for progress, 77 Smart Cities have established their SPVs, he told Parliamentary consultative committee.

“The selection process of Smart Cities is based on the idea of Competitive and Cooperative Federalism and follows a Challenge process to select cities in two stages,” he elaborated.

A two-stage selection process has been followed. In the first stage, 100 smart cities have been distributed amongst the States and UTs based on equitable criteria.

The State/UT subsequently have shortlisted potential smart cities based on preconditions and scoring criteria.

In the second state of the competition, each of the potential 100 smart cities had prepared their Smart City Proposal (SCP) which contained the model chosen (retrofitting or redevelopment or greenfield development or a mix thereof) and additionally include a Pan-city dimension with smart solutions.

In Stage 1, all States/UTs shortlisted 98 potential Smart Cities to participate in Stage II.

Further, based on requests received from States, 12 new potential Smart Cities (left out capital cities and equal scoring cities) have also been included to participate in All India Competition (Stage 2) of the Smart City Challenge Process.

In Stage II, 90 cities have been selected so far. The other 10 cities are expected to be selected in this financial year (2017-18), the Minister said.

Projects focusing on revamping an identified area (Area Based Projects) are estimated to cost Rs.152,500 crore.
Smart initiatives across the city (Pan City Initiatives) account for the remaining Rs.36,655 crore of investments.

Besides ABD and Pan city projects an amount of Rs.1,998.49 crore has been kept aside for O&M cost of the Mission and other contingencies.

Puri said Rs.1,35,459 crore worth of 2,855 projects are in various stages of implementation.

While 147 projects worth Rs.1,872 crore have been completed and 396 projects with a cost of Rs.14,672 cores are currently under implementation

Further tendering has started for 283 projects with a cost of Rs.16,549 and detailed project reports are being prepared for 2,029 projects worth Rs.1,02,366 crores. fii-news.com