BHUBANESWAR: With the project timeline of Centre’s Smart Cities Mission (SCM) coming to an end in June this year, the fate of Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited (BSCL), a special purpose vehicle (SPV), formed by the state government for implementation of smart city projects in the state capital, is hanging in balance.
Sources said, officials of BSCL during a high-level meeting of its board last month were reportedly informed by the Housing and Urban Development (H&UD) authorities to wait till June 2023 to know whether the SPV will be continued.
“We receive funds under smart cities mission as well as City Investments to Innovate, Integrate and Sustain (CITIIS). However, no budget provision has been made by the state government for any of these projects in 2023-24,” said a BSCL official.
“We were informed that the government is yet to get any communication from the Centre regarding the grants it will be receiving for implementation of the smart city projects in the 2023-24 fiscal,” he said. The official also informed that they were told in the meeting to ensure the sustainability of projects that have been implemented by the agency.
Notably, the Centre had announced the development of 100 cities as ‘Smart Cities’ on June 25, 2015. Accordingly, cities were chosen through four rounds of selection from January 2016 to June 2018 in which Bhubaneswar was picked as the number one smart city. Soon BSCL was formed as a SPV company by the Odisha government in February 2016 for the implementation of SCM projects in the Capital.
While the deadline for completion of projects under smart cities was five years, sources said the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs extended the timeline for all the 100 participating cities to June 2023 in view of the NITI Aayog recommendation as well as the delay caused by the Covid-19 pandemic in the execution of the smart city projects.
A senior official from the BSCL said the SPV is expected to continue as the Centre is mulling to pick the 100 smart cities as mentors for the new cities to be selected for their development under the SCM in the subsequent phases.
Besides, he said certain proposals including the Lake Neutral project is pending for approval. The proposals will have to be scrapped if the SPV is discontinued. Sources said BSCL as of 2022-23 had received Rs 990 crore, Rs 500 crore from Centre and a matching grant of Rs 490 crore from the state government towards the implementation of smart city projects under SCM. Of this, the agency has spent close to Rs 870 crore.
BSCL officials said they so far have completed 19 projects including 10 major projects. The BSCL at present has also partnered with Tata for the installation of EV charging stations and funding the ongoing ‘Drink from Tap’ project executed by Watco in the capital city. The headquarters of the agency has recently shifted to the new BMC and ICOMC tower on Janpath road.
FUTURE UNCERTAIN
Project timeline of Centre’s Smart Cities Mission coming to an end in June this year
No budget provision has been made by the state government for any of these projects in 2023-24
State govt yet receive any communication from the Centre regarding grants