A special purpose vehicle is to be floated to raise funds for the smart city project in Visakhapatnam.

The United States Trade Development Agency, which is facilitating corporates from the USA to plan and develop Visakhapatnam, Allahabad and Ajmer as smart cities, would be able to put in place a mission specific for the city and the State Government can expect proposals from the corporates to flow in, Regional Director South and South East Asia of USTDA Henry Steingass said at a conference on Visakhapatnam as Smart City organised by CII and the Government of AP here on Friday.

Infrastructure modernisation would require billions of dollars. Financing would be a major challenge for the Government and the corporates would want long term guarantees, he said.

The Government would be floating a special purpose vehicle for raising funds for financing the project which would require an estimated Rs 23,555 crores for various sectoral initiatives to achieve smart city goals, Secretary Municipal Administration and Urban Development Aramane Giridhar said.

He invited corporates to invest in Visakhapatnam, a future economic powerhouse.

District Collector N Yuvaraj, chairman CII Andhra Pradesh Suresh Chitturi, vice-chairman G S Shiv Kumar, Commercial Counselor US Embassy in India Dillon Banerjee, Prashant Pradhan of the IBM and executive director of American Chamber of Commerce Ajay Singha spoke.

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