The Times of India 18.03.2016
CCP cannot fund Smart City mission: Mayor
Panaji: Reiterating that the corporation of the city of Panaji was not
in a position to contribute towards the Smart City Mission proposal or
raise taxes to mobilize capital, mayor Surendra Furtado said he would
seek the intervention of the defence minister Manohar Parrikar. Furtado
said that a delegation of CCP officials would visit Delhi and try to
impress upon the ministry of urban development to make an exception for
Panaji.
According to the Smart City Mission fund-sharing formula
CCP has to generate 20% of the funds, while 40% of the funds will be
contributed by the state government and Union government each.
commissioner and I will go to Delhi. We will meet my contacts in Delhi.
The defence minister must help and negotiate for Panaji,” Furtado said
while addressing mediapersons at the CCP office. “CCP is not in a
position to fund this project.”
Panaji
is one of the 100 Smart cities selected under the Smart City Mission of
Union ministry of urban development. Though it missed the first round,
Goa’s capital city features on the list of 23 cities, which have been
invited to revise and fasttrack their Smart City proposals for
submission before April 15.
Clarifying
on the reasons why Panaji missed out on the first round, the ministry
of urban development said that while Panaji’s smart city proposal
provides information on various service aspects, it failed to provide
quantified service indicators and that issues or levels of
service-related to transport for were not well defined.
“It
is recommended that the linkage of such interventions with
sustainability and economic development be explored and elaborated more
strongly in the proposal,” the ministry of urban development observed
regarding the city’s area based development plan. CCP has invited
suggestions from locals and will hold a public deliberation on March 22
to finalize the draft proposal. “The consultants will then fine tune the
proposals and by April 15, the final proposal will be submitted,”
commissioner Sanjit Rodrigues said.
