HYDERABAD: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation proposes to utilise the services of Knight Frank (India) Pvt Limited, in association with Fortress Infrastructure Services and PSP Financial Consultants Pvt Ltd, as consultant to prepare the Integrated Smart City Development Plan (ISCDP) for Hyderabad to be submitted to the central government in about 100 days’ time.
The central government empanelled region-wise consulting agencies for assisting the selected smart cities in the preparation of proposal for Assisting Cities to participate in the Smart City Challenge.
Of the empanneled 11 consultants for four states, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Goa, the GHMC short-listed the said agency on the basis of technical and financial scores in its proposals. For preparation of the concept plans, it will pay the consultants around Rs 70 lakh.
In this connection, GHMC special officer Somesh Kumar and senior officials held a detailed meeting with the professional consultants at the corporation’s head office near Tank Bund here on Monday.
The Union ministry of urban development will select 20 cities in the first phase from the announced 98 cities to develop them as smart cities by the end of this year. The Centre has short-listed Greater Hyderabad among the 98 potential smart cities in the country. Greater Hyderabad has to compete with the rest of the 98 short-listed smart cities to make it to the list of 20 cities whose development will be taken up in the first phase. The proposed smart cities will be selected in three phases, 20 this year and 39 each in the subsequent years. If Hyderabad figures among the 20 cities, it will get a funding of Rs 100 crore a year for the next five years to provide core infrastructure and offer quality of life to citizens, and a clean and sustainable environment.
The core infrastructure elements for a Smart City will include adequate water supply, sanitation including solid waste management, efficient urban mobility and public transport, affordable housing especially for the poor, heritage, good governance especially e-governance and citizen participation, sustainable environment, safety and security of citizens.
The ISCDP for Hyderabad needs to include the smart city vision that is how the city visualises itself in five years, besides mission and identification of key challenges, and situation analysis vis-a-vis physical, economic, social, legal and institutional infrastructure, GHMC official added.
As smart cities require to be environmentally sustainable, GHMC will prepare an environmental sustainability plan (ESP) which will outline the plan and actions for ensuring, inter alia, adoption of energy efficient and green technologies and processes. It will also encourage change in behaviour to maintain and rejuvenate cleanliness, greenery, water bodies, etc.
Once the ISCD plan is submitted to the Centre, proposals received by the government will be scrutinised by a committee specially constituted for this purpose and supported by a multi-disciplinary PMU at the central and regional levels. The final sanctioning of the projects will be made by an empowered committee appointed by the central government.