In his budget speech on Friday the Finance Minister of state of Maharashtra, Mr. Sudhir Mungantiwar said that Maharashtra government will set aside a fund of at least Rs. 400 crores for the development of eight cities that have been excluded from the centre’s Smart City list. The BJP led government in Maharashtra has announced this on the eve of proposing the budget. The central government selected Solapur and Pune from Maharashtra among the first phase cities that would be developed as Smart Cities which were 20 in number. But astonishingly as per the policies the cities like Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai, Nagpur, Klyan-Dombivali, Aurangabad, Amravati and Nashik could not make it in the first phase.
The centre is yet to choose more cities for the Smart City projects over the next ensuing years. The minister said that even then the Maharashtra government has decided to step in to this spree of development and see that the growths of other cities are also accelerated. Thus the state government will look in to the matter and would provide the funds to implement the funds for the Smart-City plans of the eight municipal corporations that have been excluded in the first round.
The finance minister said that in the Smart City project the state governments are supposed to deploy equal amount of funds allocated by the central government. The state has also decided that it would allocate the same funds for the other cities left out in the first phase.
The central government has set a target of developing 100 smart cities in the whole nation under the Smart City mission. In that the potential beneficiaries are the 98 cities that have been selected. The initial funding for the projects were Rs. 48 thousand crores and in that the government choose 20 cities in the first phase. The promise is to give each of the cities Rs. 500 crore for its projects over a period of five years. The Urban local bodies and the state governments are supposed to invest Rs. 250 crore each in the same period.
The senior officials of the State Urban Development ministry opined that all the other cities would be selected in the subsequent rounds but the state has decided to release the funds straight away. The corporations have been urged to upgrade and ready their proposals which have also to be submitted to the central government. In the meanwhile they can also start the initial work of constructing the Smart City on some of the projects proposed by them.
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In this spree of development the ten cities have already submitted their proposals together which is estimated to be worth of Rs. 32, 000 crore to the central government. Out of all these the plan of Navi Mumbai was the most expensive of around an outlay of Rs. 8, 500 crore. This was followed by Thane and Amaravati. Thane and Amaravati quoted around Rs. 6, 660 crore and Rs. 5000 crore respectively. In this the cities like Pune and Solarpur submitted their plans costing Rs. 2900 crore and Rs. 1000 crore respectively.
The minister said that apart from releasing the funds from the state government the additional funds will be arranged from external loans for the ambitious plans of the eight corporations.
The minister said that apart from releasing the funds from the state government the additional funds will be arranged from external loans for the ambitious plans of the eight corporations.
