A special purpose vehicle (SPV) to raise funds for the Smart City project in Visakhapatnam would be floated soon. A Visakhapatnam specific mission for Smart City would be in place by May-June.
“The United States Trade Development Agency, which is facilitating corporates from the U.S. to plan and develop Visakhapatnam, Allahabad, and Ajmer as smart cities, will be able to put in place a mission specific for the city, and the State government can expect proposals from the corporates to flow in,” Regional Director of South and South East Asia of USTDA Henry Steingass said. He was speaking at a conference on Visakhapatnam as Smart City organised by the CII and the Government of Andhra Pradesh on Friday.
Infrastructure modernisation would require billions of dollars. Financing would be a major challenge for the government, and the corporates would want long-term guarantees, he said.
The government would be floating a special purpose vehicle to raise funds for financing the project, which would require an estimated Rs. 23,555 crore for various sectoral initiatives to achieve Smart City goals, Secretary of Municipal Administration and Urban Development Aramane Giridhar said.
As spelt out in the concept paper and mandated by the Centre, the civic administration would try to raise funds through unlocking value of unutilised assets and user charges for the services provided.
“The government has been able to raise funds from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank for revamp of infrastructure,” the Mr. Giridhar said.
“We have a modicum of an action plan on the rollout of the Smart City project,” he said, and invited corporates to come and invest in Visakhapatnam, which was a future economic powerhouse.
District Collector N. Yuvaraj, Chairman of CII Andhra Pradesh Suresh Chitturi, vice-chairman G. S. Shiv Kumar, Commercial Counsellor, the U. S. Embassy in India, Dillon Banerjee, Prashant Pradhan of the IBM, and Executive Director of American Chamber of Commerce Ajay Singha spoke.
Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu could not address the special plenary session in view of his official engagements in Hyderabad, because of which he could not reach the city in time.
