5 initiatives launched under AMRUT and Smart Cities Mission by the Minister of State (i/c) of Housing and Urban Affairs Shri Hardeep Singh Puri

On July 9, 2018, Sh. Hardeep S Puri, MoS(I/C), Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs announced the launch of the Smart cities digital payment award and other initiatives under AMRUT and Smart City mission.

• It is intended to promote ‘Digital India’ and ease of living for India’s urban residents by promoting digital payments and encouraging Smart Cities to adopt innovative digital payments initiatives.
• Sh. Durga Shanker Mishra, Secretary, Ministry of Housing Affairs and other senior officials of the ministry were also present on the occasion

Objective:

Smart cities fellowship and internship program will provide the youth an opportunity to experience the aspects of Urban planning and governance.

Key Points:

• Sh. Puri launched several new initiatives under AMRUT and the Smart Cities Mission. They are:
• India Smart Cities Fellowship (ISCF) Program, India Smart Cities Internship (ISCI) Program and The Smart Cities Digital Payments Awards 2018 and the ‘CITIIS’ challenge under the Smart Cities Mission and the Local Area Plan (LAP)/Town Planning Scheme (TPS) to be implemented in 25 cities on pilot basis under AMRUT.

About India Smart Cities Fellowship (ISCF) Program

• The India Smart Cities Fellowship Program is designed to provide valuable experience to the youth interested in smart cities .
• This program will cultivate young leaders, strengthen their understanding of Indian urban sector and prepare them for greater leadership roles in future.
• MoHUA will engage 30 young graduates/post graduates and PhDs in the fields of Urban Planning, Urban Design, Engineering, Information and Technology, Urban Mobility, Finance, Social Sector, and Environmental issues as Smart Cities Fellows.
• The period of engagement is 1-year extendable upto 3 years.
• They will work in terms of analytics, research, documentation, independent assessment, visualization or any other related activities including preparation of reports, posters, dossiers, etc.
• Interested applicants may apply online through Smart Net  till 31 August 2018.

About India Smart Cities Internship (ISCI) Program

• MoHUA will engage students pursuing Under Graduate/Graduate/Post Graduate degree as Interns to help implementation of Smart City Projects in various States/Cities.
• This will be on unpaid basis for a period of 6 to 12 weeks. They will be given an Experience Certificate at the end successful completion of the program.
• ISCI program will focus on areas like: Urban Planning, Urban Design, Engineering, Information and Technology, Urban Mobility, Finance, Social Sector, and Environmental issues.
• Their role primarily would be in implementation /reporting /evaluation and monitoring /knowledge management/stakeholder engagement/ media outreach and other similar activities as assigned to them by the Mission Director (SCM).

The Smart Cities Digital Payments Awards 2018

• The Smart Cities Digital Payments Awards (SCDPA) 2018 ‘100 days Challenge in 100 Smart Cities’ is part of the initiatives of MoHUA to promote ease of living for India’s urban residents.
• The objective of these awards is to guide, motivate, recognize and reward the Smart Cities for promoting digital payments.
• The challenge period would be 100 days starting from the launch of the awards.
• The awards will be conferred based on a 2-stage process. Evaluation Committee(s) chaired by Secretary, MoHUA will be the jury.
• For evaluation purpose, the Smart Cities will be divided into 4 different categories based on their population in millions. Three awards will be conferred in each of the four categories. Hence, a total of 12 awards will be conferred as part of this program.

The Categories are:

The Three Awards per category are:

• Best digital payments adopter
• Best digital payments innovator
• Fastest growing Smart City focusing on digital payments

About Cities Investment To Innovate, Integrate and Sustain (CITIIS) Challenge

• Under the Indo-French partnership program, at least 15 projects would be selected through an All-India Challenge. The projects would be in four sectors- Sustainable Mobility, Public Open Spaces, Urban governance & ICT and Social and Organizational Innovation in low-income settlements. The duration of the program will be three years (FY2018-19 to FY2020- 21).
• A Loan of EUR 100 million would be extended by AFD to selected CITIIS projects in the form of grant.
• Each awarded CITIIS project will benefit from a grant ranging from INR 20 Cr. to INR 80 Cr (max project outlay: 160 crore).
• The CITIIS grant is expected to cover from minimum 50% up to 80% of the project cost subject to a maximum of INR 80 Cr. and additional funding amounting to least 20% to be secured by the awarded cities through its own resources.
• In addition, EUR 6 million would be given as grant to be shared between the SPVs of the Smart Cities, State Governments and Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs for capacity building activities.

About LOCAL AREA PLAN (LAP) & TOWN PLANNING SCHEME (TPS)

• The Local Area Plan (LAP) and Town Planning Scheme (TPS) has been formulated under the AMRUT to enable planning for developing infrastructure in the Brownfield areas (those parts of the city that are already developed but not able to sustain the pressure on the existing infrastructure) & the Greenfield areas (periphery of the city that is prone to haphazard growth and development), respectively.
• They will be implemented in 25 selected cities on pilot basis.
• The existing areas or Brownfield areas can be redeveloped by preparing Local Area based Plans (LAP).  While at the same time, the Town Planning Schemes (TPS) can be implemented for planned urban expansion in the peripheral Greenfield areas.
• An amount of Rs. 50 crore would be provided as Central assistance at Rs 2.00 crore per city for identified 25 cities for preparing LAP/TPS. The Central Assistance shall be released in 3 installments; 20% with submission of preliminary proposal, 40% during submission of draft plan and remaining 40% during submission of final plan.
• The exercise of preparing Local Area Plan and Town Planning Scheme is expected to be completed in a period of one year.
• Town and Country Planning Organization (TCPO) will provide handholding support to the state nodal agency.

The 25 cities are:

Greater Visakhapatnam, Guwahati, Vadodara,  Indore,  Chennai,  Bengaluru,  Thiruvananthapuram, Warangal, Pune, Varanasi, Jaipur, Amritsar, Patna,  Faridabad,  Bhubaneswar, Ranchi, Raipur, Panaji , Shimla, New Kolkata, Srinagar, Dehradun, Aizawl,    Gangtok, Imphal