Chennai:
Tamil Nadu is likely to have three of the proposed 100 smart cities
initiative by Union government that has already sparked a global
interest with countries queuing up to be part of the initiative,
according to Union Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu.
Speaking during the final consultative meeting on smart cities
organized by Confederation of Indian Industry here, Naidu refused to
give the list of cities in Tamil Nadu which would be developed into a
smart city.
“We are holding a two-day workshop in New Delhi in which housing
secretaries of all states and union territories would be
participating. A concept note as well as detailed framework would be
worked out besides the identification of cities would be done during
the workshop,” Naidu said.
Interestingly, the state housing secretary, member secretary of
Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority besides director of town
and country planning are attending the conference.
Talking about global interest the initiative by the Modi government
has sparked, Naidu said that the government has signed memorandum of
understanding with US trade and development agency to develop
Visakhapatnam, Allahabad and Ajmer besides Germany has come forward to
associate itself with development of three more cities.
“Japan, UK, Sweden, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and The Netherlands
are keen to partner with India. We have nearly 10 to 12 countries that
have evinced keen interest in developing smart cities,” said Naidu.
The minister also said that the Centre is planning to come out with a
new initiative called ‘City Challenge’ initiative to evaluate cities
and towns on the basis of credit worthiness as well as sanitation.
Interestingly, the smart cities initiative has already attracted the
developers. Chitty Babu, chairman of Confederation of Indian Industry
Tamil Nadu conference on smart cities said that the proposal of
building a smart city by JICA has resulted in the land prices in the
area going skywards. Although, he did not provide the exact figures
but said developers have invested heavily.
He also said that the smart cities may not escalate the prices of
properties. “It may go up near the places where the smart cities would
be set up but then the prices would be stagnant at the other areas,”
he said.
Babu also said that the smart cities initiative would result in tie-up
between Indian and international developers. The international
developer would be investing money and technology but it will be the
Indian developer who would be building the cities, he said.
Box:
Cost of smart cities:
--- The High Power Expert Committee (HPEC) on Investment Estimates in
urban infrastructure has assessed a Per Capita Investment Cost (PCIC)
of Rs 43,386 for a 20 year period
- The estimates cover water supply, sewerage, sanitation and
transportation related infrastructure.
- Using an average figure of 1.0 million people in each of the 100
smart cities, the total estimate of investment requirements for the
services covered by HPEC comes to Rs 7.0 lakh crores over 20 years
(with an annual escalation of 10pc from 2009-20 to 2014-15).
- This translates into an annual requirement of Rs 35,000 crores.
- A large part of the financing for smart cities will have to come
from the Private sector with the States/Cities and Central Government
only supplementing that effort
- Investments of Rs 5,000 crore may be required as an initial
investment to be provided as unlinked/ untied funds for the selected
cities to prepare the City Development Plan
Approval process:
--- States would be required to submit proposals for approval of the
respective satellite cities, cities of tourist and religious
importance as well as cities in the 0.2 – 1.0 million population
range,
--- These proposals would be reviewed by a Committee that will be
serviced by a regional multidisciplinary project management unit and
then approved by the Central Government
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