A total of 2,342 projects worth Rs 90,929 crore have been tendered under the Smart City suggestion. Almost 72 per cent of these or 1,675 projects worth Rs 51,866 crore are under achievement or have been completed, as on November 30, 2018. The pace of accomplishment of projects has picked up considerably during the last one year. There has been a 290 per cent increase in projects tendered, 332 per cent increase in projects stranded or complete and 479 per cent increase in projects completed since October 2017.
Weighing the overall speculation situation on this parameter, however, gave contradictory results. While the year-on-year value of new speculation projects announced has been growing over the past two quarters of 2018/19 (2.54 per cent in June 2018 and 50.5 per cent in September), the overall value of investment projects finished declined 22.7 per cent in September 2018 quarter. However, in just one year the rate of completion (the value of projects under accomplishment as a per cent of total outstanding projects) shot up 3 percentage points from September 2017 to September 2018 it. CMIE predicts if this prominent level of accomplishment continues we could see a faster conclusion of projects in the near future. An important caution to be noted — nearly two-thirds of the increase in the accomplishment rate reflects a drop in the total outstanding projects, which is the denominator in the computation of the accomplishment rate. Only one-third of the increase in accomplishment rate can be attributed to the increase in actual accomplishment.
According to a Rajya Sabha reply by Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of state (independent charge) of the ministry of housing and urban affairs, a total of 5,151 projects worth Rs 2,05,018 crore have been incorporated by the selected 100 cities in their Smart City proposals. These projects are executed through meeting of resources from central, state government or local body as well as outwardly funded schemes or projects. It also envisages around 20 per cent of subsidy through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs).
As per the Smart Cities Mission strategy, the central government plans to give a financial maintain to the extent of Rs 500 crore to each of the selected 100 Smart cities over the mission period (2015 to 2020). The budgetary allotment since the launch of the mission in June 2015 till the current year (2018/19) is Rs 16,604.2 crore, of which Rs 14,221.20 crore have already been free under the mission so far. As on November 1, 2018, an utilisation of Rs 3,560.22 crore has been reported by the cities, which is more than 25 per cent of the funds unrestricted till then.
It takes around 12-18 months for a selected city to set up special purpose vehicle, procure project management advisor, hire necessary human resources, call tenders and issue work orders. The accomplishment plan is given by each Smart City in its Smart City suggestion.
