The Puducherry government has formed a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) named “Puducherry Smart City Development Limited” to implement the Smart City project.
Registered as a limited company under the Companies Act 2013, the SPV will have the Government of Puducherry and the Municipality as its promoters having 50:50 equity shareholdings.
It has a 16-member director board consisting of Chief Secretary Manoj Parida as the Chairman and Secretaries to Finance, Local Administration Department, Tourism, Information Technology, Power among others as directors. The SPV will also appoint a Chief Executive Officer.
The implementation of the Smart City Mission at the city level will be done by the SPV.
It will plan, appraise, approve, release funds, implement, manage, operate, monitor and evaluate the Smart City development projects.
A top government official told The Hindu , “The government has planned as many as 63 individual projects in the Smart City proposal. We have proposed to bunch the projects into five categories such as energy, infrastructure, Information technology related, tourism and pan city solutions.
Three consultant
A maximum of three consultants will be hired for conducting the feasibility study, Detailed Project Report and Request for Proposal and to provide end-to-end solutions for the projects. Each consultant will take care of core projects by integrating them into a comprehensive proposal,” the official added.
AFD, the French bilateral development agency, will provide technical assistance and capacity building to help the SPV in preparing and implementing the smart city project.
Experts from the Smart Cities Club in France will also be on an exposure visit to Puducherry in October to share their expertise.
“We have planned five impacting proposals that is a right mix of development of infrastructure, tourism, mobility and heritage to ensure that the core business areas which are in the boulevard region are developed to world standards,” the official said.
Key concepts
Some of the key concepts that will come up in Area Based Development (Boulevard and surrounding areas) include redevelopment of the Grand Canal and a city wide command and control infrastructure.
A three-km stretch of the Grand Canal has been planned for beautification and flanked with pedestrian pathways and iconic cycle tracks. This project has been proposed at ₹157 crore.
Taking a cue from the ongoing beach restoration project taken up by the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), the government has also planned restoration of the beach on the southern side. As part of the Smart City initiative, the government has also proposed a public bicycle sharing scheme. Bicycle stations will come up in different locations and plans are on the anvil to create 10.3 km of exclusive bicycle track.
