Context: 

Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs hailed the progress of the Smart City Mission.

Background:

• The Smart City Mission has completed eight years recently.
• Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri appreciated the achievements of the Smart City Mission.

About

• Launched in 2015.
• Ministry: Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
• Smart Cities Mission is a joint effort of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), and all state and union territories (UT) governments.
• It is an innovative and new initiative by the Government of India to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life of people.

Objectives of Smart Cities Mission:                                             

• To promote cities that provide core infrastructure and give a decent quality of life to its citizens, a clean and sustainable environment and application of Smart Solutions.
• 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 through the creation of replicable models, which act as inspirations to other aspiring cities.

The six fundamental principles on which the concept of Smart Cities is based are:-

Financing:

• The Smart City Mission is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS).
• The Central Government gives financial support to the Mission to the extent of Rs. 48,000 crores over five years i.e. on an average of 100 crore per city per year.
• An equal amount, on a matching basis, will have to be contributed by the State/ULB.

Implementation:

• The implementation of the Mission at the City level will be done by a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV).
• SPV: A special purpose vehicle, also called a special purpose entity (SPE), is a subsidiary created by a parent company to isolate financial risk.
  • The SPV is promoted by the state/Union Territory and the urban local body, with a 50% equity shareholding each.
  • The SPV formed as a limited company is governed by the Companies Act, 2013.
• Duration:-
  • The Mission was to cover 100 cities and its duration will be five years (FY2015-16 to FY2019-20).
  • It was aimed to be completed by 2019-20 but has since been extended.

Smart city is envisaged to have four pillars:

• Social Infrastructure.
• Physical Infrastructure.
• Institutional Infrastructure (including Governance).
• Economic Infrastructure.

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