Journalism of Courage
Being applauded for the exercise to encourage public participation in suggesting programmes under the smart city mission, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) now has the tough task ahead to prepare a smart city plan (SCP) for its jurisdiction in the next 100 days to compete with the selected potential 100 cities. Only winners will be able to start the action required to make their city smart, while rest will have to compete again in the second round after improving their SCP.
“We have qualified for the smart city mission of the Union government. Hence, the next step will be to prepare a smart city plan (SCP) for the PMC in the next 100 days and submit it to the Union government for approval. The Union government will provide an advance of Rs 2 crore to prepare the SCP,” said a civic official.
He added that it would be a detailed plan of the city as per the guidelines made for the smart city initiative, and projects would be proposed to achieve the set goals.
The SCP will be based on models defined – city improvement (retrofitting), city renewal (redevelopment) and city extension (greenfield development). A pan-city initiative, in which smart solutions will be applied, covering larger parts of the city, will also be taken into consideration, said the official.
After being selected from among potential 100 smart cities, the PMC will have to create a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to implement its SCP. The SPV, to be headed by a chief executive officer, will plan, appraise, approve, release funds, implement, manage, operate, monitor and evaluate the smart city development projects.
The SPV will have nominees of Union and state government, along with that from the local civic body.
