Sep 30 2015
Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "India Smart Cities Infrastructure Investment Outlook" report to their offering.
India has announced its plan to build 100 new smart cities besides developing modern satellite towns around existing cities under its Smart City program. The Government of India allocated INR 70.6 Billion (US$ 1.2 Billion) for Smart Cities in the Union Budget for 2014-15. The government has set up the Smart Cities Mission as an initiative to set the template and create examples of smart cities that can be replicated both within and outside the Smart City. It is expected that these cities would further catalyze the creation of similar Smart Cities in other regions and parts of the country.
India's Smart City plan is part of a larger plan to develop industrial corridors or regions of industrial development connecting big metropolitan cities. The Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), the Chennai-Bangalore Industrial Corridor (CBIC) and the Bangalore-Mumbai Economic Corridor (BMEC) are examples of this approach. Many industrial and commercial centers are expected to be recreated as Smart Cities along these corridors. About seven new smart cities are expected to be developed as the nodes of the corridor in its first phase along the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), which is spread across six states.
The development of smart cities is spearheaded by the Smart Cities Mission which is an innovative and new initiative by the Government of India. The mission aims to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life of people by promoting local development and using technology as a means to create a better livelihood, quality and standard of life and better delivery of civic facilities for citizens. The strategy of the mission is to create a Pan-city initiative in which at least one Smart Solution is applied all across the city. It also aims to develop areas step-by-step using three models of area-based developments namely Retrofitting, Redevelopment and Greenfield approach.
The Smart City Mission aims to cover 100 cities over a duration of five years (FY2015-16 to FY2019-20). Based on an evaluation to be done by the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) the Mission may be continued beyond 2020 after incorporating the learning into the Mission. The distribution of the 100 Smart Cities across the different states and UTs of India is on the basis of equitable criteria. The criteria give equal weightage (50:50) to the urban population of the State/UT and the number of statutory towns in the State/UT. This formula guarantees a certain number of potential Smart Cities for each State/UT and each State/ UT would have at least one. The number and distribution of potential Smart Cities from each State/UT has an upper limit as indicated.