Urban Renaissance

The Union Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley addressing the seminar on GST: The game changer for Indian Economy, during the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit 2017, at Mahatma Mandir, in Gandhinagar, Gujarat on January 11, 2017. — *Venkaiah Naidu addressing the seminar on “Smart and Livable cities: Opportunities and challenges”, in Gandhinagar.*

Urban renaissance is taking place in India with an unprecedented development, said Urban Development, Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Venkaiah Naidu.

Addressing a seminar on “Smart and Livable Cities” at the Vibrant Gujarat Summit in Gandhinagar on Jan 11, 2017, he underlined the government’s focus on urban development and elaborated on future plans for metro rails in 500 cities.

He pointed out that about 65 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) comes from cities being engines of growth and it must benefits the poor in the process.

Development of 60 of the 100 cities under the Smart and Livable Cities initiative is going on at a fast pace, he said.

Special Purpose Vehicles (SPV) have been formed to work on Ahmedabad and Surat, two of the 100 the cities under the initiative.

Work is also expected to begin soon in four more cities in Gujarat including Gandhinagar and Vadodara.

Work on the 1st phase of Metro rail project in Ahmedabad is in full swing. The 32-km project, costing about Rs.11,000 crore, would be completed by 2018.

Presently metro rail projects are being implemented in 31 cities, each with over 20 lakh population. The metro rail projects will followed on in other cities, each with over 10 lakh population, said the Minister.

The government would select 500 more cities, each with populations over one lakh people, under the smart city programme in the future, he announced.

The SPV system would be used in implementing projects for developing smart cities. Each SPV would be allocated Rs.500 crore capital for providing clean water, power and traffic management among other facilities. fii-news.com