Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of building smart cities is set to take shape with the Centre readying to invite bids for Dholera investment region in Gujarat in the next three months and for integrated industrial townships in Greater Noida and Vikram Udyogpuri in Madhya Pradesh along the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) by March next year.
Japan is providing support of $4.5 billion in the first phase of these projects through lending by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC). The government would invite bids for another project, Shendra Bidkin industrial zone in Maharashtra, by mid-2015.
An industry consultation workshop last month saw participation from companies including Oracle, Microsoft, TCS, Cisco, Accenture and L&T, among others.
About 35-40% of projects are trunk infrastructure, for which funds are provided by the DMIC Trust while the rest of the 60-65% projects are being structured under the PPP model. The DIPP is currently discussing guidelines for smart cities to qualify a city to be called ‘smart’.