Pune Smart City to work with US Dept of Treasury for raising funds & resources

Municipal Corporation officials say a team from the Department visited Pune a week back and will soon finalise term of references for the contract

Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), which  has pegged the cost of making Pune a smart city within the next five years at Rs 3,480 crore, is in talks with the US government's Department of Treasury to help it raise funds via issuance of bonds.

Senior officials from the Municipal Corporation said that a team from the Department of Treasury had visited Pune a week back and will soon be finalising the term of references for the contract.

Kunal Kumar, Pune Municipal Commissioner, said: "The Department of Treasury had approached the Government of India and shown interest to work with one of the smart cities in raising its bonds issue. After looking at all the States they have shown interest to work with Pune city." Kumar was addressing media after the conclusion of the first joint meeting of board members since Nitin Kareer Urban development department principal secretary took over as the chairman of Pune Smart City Development Corporation (PSCDC).

Kumar said that the Department of treasury will help in three to four areas. One, they will help in identifying the most efficient source of resource generation for both the Smart City project as well as for the Corporations future development plans. Two, they will conduct debt capacity analysis for the Corporation based on the revenue generation.

"They will also tell us the percentahe of debt that should be raised via loan, bonds etc. along with identifying new fund generations routes such as non-sovereign loan," added Kumar.

Finally, the Treasury department will also do the hand holding if the Corporation decides to raise funds via bond issuance. "This will take 5-6 months to finalise. We will also initiate talks with private players, and go ahead with the plan that will give us the best results," added Kumar.

Kareer, who today chaired the first meeting with all the board members said that the corporation will also tap into private funding.

"Despite the fact that we do not have Octroi tax the credit rating of the corporation is good. Talks have been initiated with several organisations," said Kareer.

During the meeting, 15 projects were identified that will see implementation from next month. These projects include areas such as transportation, water supply, drainage, electricity and area development.

Pune is among the first 20 cities that were shortlisted for the smart city project by the Central Government. The SPV, Pune smart city development corporation (PSCDC), was created on March 23, is a 50:50 partnership between the State government and Pune Municipal Corporation, and will have 15 board members. Six will be from municipal corporation, four from the State government, one will represent the Central government. Two independent directors will be elected at the Central and State government levels. Kumar, will be the managing director and chief of SPV, while the PMC CEO will be the executive director of PSCDC.