Identification of 'Smart Cities' after consultation with the state governments: Naidu

Union Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday said that the final decision on the identification of 'Smart Cities' will take place after consultations with all the state governments.

"We are working on 'Smart Cities' and the Delhi-Mumbai corridor. We will be coming out with the final touches of the documents by the end of the month and I am planning to call a meeting of all the Secretaries of the Urban Development [Ministries] of different state governments and have a final consultation. After that, I will be going to Parliament and the 'Smart Cities' plan will be launched," Naidu told the media.

Naidu further stated that owing to the high costs of building Smart Cities, the government will approach it with a public-private partnership (PPP) model.

"The 'Smart Cities' can only be built via a PPP model because it requires lakhs of crores of rupees and the government alone cannot invest in that," he said.

"The identification of the smart cities will be completed after consultation with the state governments because we have to take the Centre, states and local urban bodies into confidence before we can finalise this concept," he added.

Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked the Ministry of Urban Development to convene a workshop of all central and state urban development authorities at the earliest and asked officials to identify the basics of infrastructure, quality of life, and citizen-centric services that would be essential to cities of the 21st century.

The Prime Minister further stated that cities should be identified as 'hubs of economic activity', adding that a focus on 'waste to wealth', that is, solid-waste management and waste-water treatment, would be an important part of the development of smart cities.