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Tiruchi goes slow on Smart City proposal

Image result for trichy smart cityThe Tiruchi City Corporation is yet to firm up the smart city proposal.

Tiruchi was among 30 cities across the country selected for implementing smart city proposal in the third phase.

The Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) had announced the third list in the third week of June.

However, the Tiruchi City Corporation is yet to finalise the proposal.

As per the guidelines issued by the Ministry, the selected cities should float a Special Purpose Vehicle for implementing the project from planning to execution. The SPV will plan, appraise, approve, release funds, operate and monitor the smart city proposal.

A Chief Executive Officer will have to be appointed for executing the projects.

Similarly, the State and Central governments will appoint nominees for the board.

Besides tapping the government funds and grants, the Special Purpose Vehicle will have powers to raise private equity and funds for the projects.

Depending upon the circumstances, the SPV can execute the projects with joint ventures, subsidiaries and public-private partnership.

Similarly, a limited company should be formed and it should be registered under the Company’s Act so as to prepare policy documents, preparing Detailed Project Reports and executive the projects.

However, informed sources said that though a few meetings had taken place to firm up the proposal, there was no progress made so far on it.

Senior officials visited Chennai on a few occasions recently to discuss with the Commissionerate of Municipal Administration officials so as to find out ways and means to firm up the proposals.

A senior official of the Tiruchi Corporation said that though it had received general guidelines from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs for smart city proposals, it could not float SPV or finalise the proposals without the instruction from the State government.

Since the Smart City concept was a new concept, several doubts were bound to happen.

They had to be addressed at various levels in order to form standard procedures to implement the smart city proposals.

The official said that a seven sq km area in and around Rockfort temple would be the focus of area development plan of the smart city project in Tiruchi. Issues including traffic congestion, parking, open drainages, roads and others in and around Rockfort temple, Chathiram Bus Stand and Gandhi Market would have to be addressed. Intensive discussions were on to formalise the final proposal.

SOurce:http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/tiruchi-goes-slow-on-smart-city-proposal/article19556899.ece

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