City among 25 to have 5 new schemes under AMRUT yojana

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New Delhi: India Smart Cities Fellowship (ISCF) Program and India Smart Cities Internship (ISCI) Program will provide the youth an opportunity to experience the aspects of urban planning and governance, MoS for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri said here Monday.
Puri launched five new initiatives under Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) and the Smart Cities Mission which will be implemented in 25 cities including Bhubaneswar. Apart from ISCF and ISCI, the new initiatives include Smart Cities Digital Payments Awards (SCDPA) 2018, ‘CITIIS’ challenge under the Smart Cities Mission and Local Area Plan (LAP)/Town Planning Scheme (TPS).
Announcing the launch of the SCDPA, the minister said, “It is intended to promote ‘Digital India’ and ease of living for India’s urban residents by promoting digital payments and encouraging Smart Cities to adopt innovative digital payments initiatives.
The ISCF programme is aimed at cultivating young leaders, strengthening their understanding of Indian urban sector and prepares them for greater leadership roles in future. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) will engage 30 young graduates/post graduates and PhDs in the fields of Urban Planning, Urban Design, Engineering, Information and Technology, Urban Mobility, Finance, Social Sector, and Environmental issues as Smart Cities Fellows. Interested applicants may apply online through Smart Net ( https://smartnet.niua.org) till August 31.
In ISCI program, the MoHUA will engage students pursuing Under Graduate/Graduate/Post Graduate degree as Interns to help implementation of Smart City Projects in various States/Cities. ISCIs will be given exposure in a slew of areas of development under Smart Cities Mission.
The SCDPA 2018 is aimed at guiding, motivating, recognizing and rewarding the Smart Cities for promoting digital payments and carrying out innovative payment initiatives in their respective cities.
“This program will not only reward cities at the forefront of digital payments but also encourage other cities to follow and strengthen their digital payments infrastructure and provide citizens with multiple options to make digital transactions, “the minister said.
Three awards will be conferred in each of the four categories. Hence, a total of 12 awards will be conferred as part of this program.
CITIIS challenge is to select top projects in 15 of the 100 selected Smart Cities through an All-India Challenge. L’Agence Française de Développement (AFD), French government’s international development agency, will extend a loan of EUR 100 million to selected CITIIS projects. The repayment of the principle and interest would be equally shared by the Central and state governments on a 50:50 basis.
LAP and TPS has been formulated under the AMRUT to enable planning for developing infrastructure in the Brownfield areas (those parts of the city that are already developed but not able to sustain the pressure on the existing infrastructure) & the Greenfield areas (periphery of the city that is prone to haphazard growth and development), respectively.
“They will be implemented in 25 selected cities on a pilot basis. The existing areas or Brownfield areas can be redeveloped by preparing LAP, while at the same time, the TPS can be implemented for planned urban expansion in the peripheral Greenfield areas,” Mishra said.