Comments
The Centre will privatise the management of basic utilities such as power, water, and sewage treatment in the 100 smart cities that are to be developed.
Shankar Aggarwal, Secretary, Ministry of Urban Development, said: “Private companies can do a more efficient job and we want municipal bodies to take advantage of the initiative by these companies.”
The Government wants municipal bodies to come on board and will set conditions for the private entities — for instance, all services to be delivered on online platform, and all records to be in digital domain. He, however, did not name the private players that have shown interest in providing the services.
“We are in talks with IBM, Microsoft and Cisco for IT in these smart cities and developers such as Parsvnath, DLF, as well as cement and steel companies for building infrastructure. Quality-cum-Financial Bid System will be followed for tenders for such companies,” Aggarwal told select mediapersons.
The identification process for smart cities will begin in a month, while the roll out will start in six months.
The 100 smart cities will include 35 capitals of States/Union Territories, around 10 cities with population of over 40 lakh, some 25 mid-size towns, and greenfield cities.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.