SMART
CITIES MISSION - GOVERNANCE
News:
Extend smart cities
mission, recommends House panel in report
What's
in the news?
●
The flagship Smart Cities Mission (SCM)
should be extended to a second phase with a focus on second-tier cities to
decongest state capitals and special purpose vehicles (SPVs) created to run the
mission be continued, a parliamentary standing committee recommended in its
report tabled in Parliament
Key
takeaways:
●
The panel asked the union ministry of
housing and urban affairs (MoHUA) to handhold cities to complete the projects
even after the SCM deadline ends in June 2024.
Smart
Cities Mission:
● Smart
Cities Mission was launched by the Union government in June, 2015.
Objective:
● To
promote cities that provide core infrastructure, clean and sustainable
environment and give a decent quality of life to their citizens through the
application of ‘smart solutions’.
Aim:
● To
drive economic growth and improve quality of life through comprehensive work on
social, economic, physical and institutional pillars of the city.
● The
focus is on sustainable and inclusive development by creation of replicable
models which act as lighthouses to other aspiring cities.
Need
for Smart Cities Mission:
● Cities
accommodate ~31% of India's current population and contribute 63% to the GDP
(Census 2011).
● By
2030, urban areas are expected to accommodate 40% of India's population and
contribute 75% to the GDP.
● Population
growth in cities leads to infrastructure management and service delivery
challenges.
● The
Smart Cities Mission in India is an initiative that aims to efficiently and
effectively tackle these challenges.
Core
Infrastructure Elements of Smart Cities Mission:
The core infrastructure
elements in a Smart City are as follows:
● Adequate
water supply
● Assured
electricity supply
● Sanitation
including solid waste management
● Efficient
urban mobility and public transport
● Affordable
housing, especially for the poor
● Robust
IT connectivity and digitalization
● Good
governance, especially e-governance and citizen participation
● Sustainable
environment
● Safety
and security of citizens, particularly women, children and the elderly
● Health
and education
The focus is on sustainable and inclusive development
and the idea is to look at compact areas, create a replicable model to serve as
a beacon to other aspiring cities.
Coverage
of Smart Cities Mission:
● The
mission will cover 100 cities that
have been distributed among the States /Union Territories (UT) on the basis of
an equitable criteria.
● The
formula gives equal weightage (50:50) to
urban population of the State/UT and the number of statutory towns (a town
with a municipality, corporation, cantonment board or notified town area
committee) in the State/UT.
● Based
on this formula, each State/UT will, therefore, have a certain number of
potential Smart Cities, with each State/UT having at least one.
Strategy
of Smart Cities Mission:
● Components
of area-based development in the 100 Smart Cities Mission in India comprise city improvement (retrofitting), city
renewal (redevelopment) and city extension (greenfield development), along with
a pan-city initiative.
● Area-based development
that will transform existing areas, including slums, into better planned
residential areas by retrofitting and redevelopment, thereby improving
habitability of the whole city.
● Greenfield projects
that will develop new areas in the city to accommodate the expanding population
in urban areas.
● Pan-city development
envisaging the application of select smart solutions to the existing city-wide
infrastructure.
Administrative
Structure of Smart Cities Mission:
Guidelines on Smart City
provide monitoring at three levels – national, state and city.
● National: An Apex
Committee, headed by the Secretary of the Ministry of Housing Urban Development and comprising
representatives from related ministries and organisations, has the mandate to
approve proposals, monitor progress and release funds.
● State:
A High Powered Steering Committee (HPSC) to be headed by the Chief Secretary of the State, which would
steer the Smart City Mission as a whole.
● City:
A Smart City Advisory Forum in all Smart Cities, comprising the District Collector, Chief Executive Officer
of Special Purpose Vehicle (an SPV is created for implementation) at the
city level.
○ Its
role is to release funds, and implement, monitor and evaluate the Smart City
development projects), member of Parliament, member of Legislative Assembly,
Mayor, local youth, technical experts and representatives of the area Resident
Welfare Association to advise and enable collaboration.
Financing
of Smart Cities Mission:
● The
Smart Cities Mission in India is a Centrally
Sponsored Scheme.
● It
requires state governments and urban local bodies (ULBs) to contribute an equal
amount for implementing projects under the Smart City Proposal (SCP).
Progress
Made by Smart Cities Mission:
● As
per data submitted by the Ministry of Urban Affairs & Housing in February
2023, more than two-thirds of the total
7,804 projects under the Smart Cities Mission (SCM) have been completed.
○ According
to SCM guidelines, the Union government is expected to provide financial
support to the tune of Rs 48,000 crore to the 100 smart cities over a period of
five years (2017-22) — almost Rs 100 crore per city per year on average.
○ Compared
to Rs 14,100 crore in FY 2022-23, the budgetary allocation for the Smart Cities
Mission was hiked in the Union Budget for FY 2023-24 to Rs 16,000 crore.
● Of
the total proposed projects under SCM, 6,041(76 percent) projects worth Rs
1,10,635 crore have been completed and the remaining 1,894 projects worth Rs
60,095 crore will be finished by June 30, 2024.
● With
about 768 projects, Karnataka topped
the list of states with the most completed projects, followed by Madhya Pradesh
(577), Uttar Pradesh (553), and Tamil Nadu (531).
● Raipur
(235) in Chhattisgarh, Indore (220) in Madhya Pradesh, Tumakuru (199) in
Karnataka, and Varanasi (104) in Uttar Pradesh were identified as the cities
with the highest number of completed projects in their states.