Govt to appoint CEOs for smart cities

NEW DELHI: For smart cities, the government will appoint CEOs, who will drive the concept and execution rather than leave these tasks to municipal bodies alone.
The guidelines released by government for rolling out the scheme to develop 100 smart cities says that each smart city will have a special purpose vehicle (SPV) like that for Metro rail projects where managing directors are sole in-charge.These will be will be headed by a full time CEO for a fixed term of three years. The SPV will also have nominees of Centre and state governments besides representatives from urban local bodies.
Sources said this is a part of the major institutional reform that has been introduced to expedite execution. "Government officers, senior corporate executives and even independent experts can be hired for this job," said a ministry official. However, the SPV will also have a board of directors, which will be headed by a divisional commissioner, collector, municipal commissioner or head of development authority.
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Moreover, there are provisions that the release of fund from Centre would be subject to proper utilization and progress made by the selected cities. "Our focus is to improve things. Those cities which fail to make progress and meet the required milestones will lose as funding cannot be released to non-performers," said urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu.
According to framework of the scheme, the initial paid up capital in the SPV from Centre and state could be up to Rs 384 crore to start work. A large part of the investment would come from private players as many components of the scheme will be executed through PPP model.