A year after the Narendra Modi government selected the first 20 cities for its Smart Cities Mission, the private sector has yet to warm up to the programme which banks on private support for big-ticket urban infrastructure projects.
Only 11 projects worth Rs 9359.3 million of the 167 projects amounting to Rs 120 billion under public-private partnership model have taken off so far, according to urban development ministry data.
Another 21 PPP projects worth Rs 26.22 billion are at various stages of tendering process. Half of the projects being implemented are in BJP-ruled Gujarat – two in Ahmedabad and three in Surat. Three are in Delhi and one each in Bhubaneswar, Belagavi and Pune.
The ministry has attributed the slow progress to the overall “negative environment in which the urban local bodies are viewed”.
According to Economic Times, additional secretary Sameer Sharma, who is spearheading the mission, said that they consider it good progress as PPP projects take a long time in taking off.
There is a lot of groundwork that is required in these projects before the tenders can be floated.
The mission is showing better implementation in BJP states. Of the 21 projects in the pipeline, 15 are in BJP states.
