Smart Funding Options for Developing Smart Cities: A Proposal for India

With the advent of proposed Smart Cities for the issues like limited resource, population growth and climatic changes which will help India achieving the holistic development of the economy by achieving economic feasibility and sustainable growth through integration of design and technology. The proposed structure will help the Indian Economy to provide long term funding and employment opportunities in future. The rapid urbanization of Indian Economy will put immense pressure on the different facets of life such as infrastructure, managing finances, and quality of life which will lead to evolution of smart concepts and models. The proposed structure for smart cities will address four fundamental areas as organizational, infrastructure, social and economic aspects. The Government of India has allocated 70.6 billion (USD 1.2 billion) for Smart Cities in Budget 2014-15 for developing 100 smart cities over a period of 5 years. The Smart City Mission will be operated as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) and the Central Government proposes to give financial support to the Mission to the extent of Rs. 48,000 crores over five years i.e. on an average Rs. 100 crores per city per year. An equal amount, on a matching basis, will have to be contributed by the State/ULB; therefore, nearly Rupees one lakh crores of Government/ULB funds will be available for Smart Cities development. The paper proposes the various sources of funding available in the world economy and their feasibility considering the Indian Economy which can be adopted for generation of required funds. The paper focuses on evaluating the various funding options and their feasibility with reference to Indian perspective.