The Indian Smart Cities Fellowship (ISCF) and Internship (ISCI) programmes were launched to act as structured and guided work based learning programme for bright young minds around the theme of Smart Cities, says Rahul Kapoor, Director (Smart Cities) Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India, in conversation with Ritika Srivastava of Elets News Network (ENN).
As 100 cities have already been selected in the Smart Cities Mission, are you satisfied with the progress of the projects in these cities?
I am delighted that Smart Cities Mission has been able to successfully work towards achieving one of its main goals—its goal of enabling cities to work towards creating better quality of life, smart governance, sustainable solutions and better social outcomes through citizen-centric smart solutions. Urban transformations take decades to unfold, however, with the multi-pronged approach of various Missions of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, cities are making rapid strides in catalysing positive change in the lives of their citizens. So far 100 smart cities have been selected. 98 out of these have set up Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) and 88 have appointed Project Management Consultants (PMCs). 94 cities have constituted City Level Advisory Forums (CLAFs).
More than 5,000 projects worth over Rs. 2 lakh crores have been proposed by these cities as part of their Smart City Proposals (SCPs). Currently, 2,220 projects worth over Rs. 85,000 crore have been tendered out, of which 1,612 projects worth over Rs. 50,000 crore have been either completed or are under implementation.
Smart Cities Mission has gained significant momentum over the last 12 months.
Digitisation is one of the key components of the Mission. What have been some of the success stories in this field?
The Mission is harnessing the power of technology and digitisation to offer citizens improved quality of life, a clean and sustainable environment. This will also help establish a deep citizengovernment connect to create inclusive cities, as well as strengthen core infrastructure in the cities.
Over the last three years, several initiatives have been successfully implemented in these cities, some of them are:
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