Scorecard, second round of contest await TN smart cities
Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu. (Photo: PTI)
Chennai: Be smart for a smart city, publish a newsletter, learn mobile apps and tools to avail smart city funds, says a circular from the union ministry of urban development. Top officials serving as corporation commissioners and municipal heads should learn the basics of journalism, mobile technology and information technology. A recent circular issued by the ministry of urban development (MoUD) informed municipal officials vying for smart city projects to publish newsletters and explore mobile based apps and tools as part of the smart city project score sheet procedure. With the first set of 100 cities being finalised and consultants appointed, the secondary level score contest between Indian cities is to begin by December, a senior state official said.
To avail of secondary level funds, officials should, every quarter, submit a score card to the ministry of urban development. The score card will give points based on parameters like sanitation, tax collection, tax arrears, execution of IT enabled services, execution of central sponsored schemes and monthly submission of a newsletter on smart city project update.
Speaking to DC, A Shankar, Head, urban solutions, strategic consulting, Jones Lang Lasalle (JLL), who are consultants for the Smart City project (Chennai and Trichy), said that the cities will be awarded marks based on the answers to a questionnaire.
“It [questionnaire] will have 54 questions and each question could have as many as 10 sub questions. The marking will be done by an executive committee of experts put together by the ministry of urban development,” he said.
Shankar said that the committee will comprise experts in the field of urban development and will have industry representatives from across the world. “Even the World Bank who will partly bankroll the Smart Cities project, could have their representatives on the committee. Rest assured, the committee will select the first 20 cities in a meticulous manner,” he added.
The consultants have time until December 15 to provide answers to the questionnaire. An interactive online web page will be created for the purpose of answering the questionnaire. At a related meeting held in Delhi on Tuesday, MoUD officials are said to have told the consultants that they would not be required to fill answers in the questionnaire at the same time.
“As some questions can require 500 word answers and some others just 50 words, MoUD has advised us to take as much time as we want until December 15 and patiently fill the questionnaire part-by-part,” he said.
Still, Shankar believes that Chennai and Tiruchy Smart Cities will be ahead of the queue as they have been two of the three best received projects online. “If you look at the mygov.inwebsite, Chennai has got over 600 comments and Tiruchy is just behind Chennai. Only Hubli, with over 1,000 comments leads the two cities. Considering, the number of comments received will matter during the marking phase, I would say Chennai and Trichy are well placed at this point in time to make the 20 cities list,” he said.
Smart cities pick their consultants
The ministry of urban development released names of 77 consulting firms for smart cities. As many as 88 cities of the 98 smart city aspirants shortlisted by the government have identified consulting firms for preparation of action plans, the ministry of urban development said on Tuesday. For Chennai and Trichy, the Centre appointed consultant Lang La Salle Property Consultants India Pvt Ltd has begun work and is hopeful that the capital city and Trichy will easily be among the top 20 position making it to the first phase of smart city contest.
The Centre has set aside Rs 48,000 crore for the mission and the money will be released to urban local bodies at frequent intervals in the next five years.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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