Pune organizes seminar on urban infrastructure ahead of G20

PUNE, Maharashtra: A seminar on urban infrastructure was organised in the city ahead of the G20 summit. A total of five sessions were held, attended by the central and state-level officials and the representatives of financial institutes and industry.

The participants have expressed the need to implement a Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) model in all the urban local bodies (ULBs). They also demanded that national-level guidelines be framed for its execution and that money should be raised from financial institutes and the capital market.

Surendra Bagde, Additional Secretary of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India, said, “Urban growth will take place naturally and no one can stop it. But the main challenge is how municipal corporations will get ready to address the citizens’ aspirations. Municipal corporations will need to create last-mile connectivity. Mumbai had good last-mile connectivity due to local trains.”

Ajit Ranade, Vice Chancellor of Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, mentioned, “The municipal corporations have great challenges as they have less revenue and need to execute many works. The main sources of income are tax, government grants, user charges, and finance. The tax collection is very poor. For example, the real estate prices in Mumbai are very high but at the same time, the Mumbai Corporation is not getting enough revenue from property tax. Day by day, the grants from the central and state government too are reducing. Municipal corporations need to execute effectively the collection of tax.”

Shalini Agrawal, Commissioner of Surat Municipal Corporation, said “The Gujarat government is promoting PPP models in municipal corporations. We have allowed free FSI in public projects. We have even allowed PPP partners to use TDR in any of the cities in the state of Gujarat. The Surat Municipal Corporation has executed various PPP projects that are helping generate revenue as well as becoming popular among the citizens.”

Meanwhile, financial institutions have stated that financial situations are not favourable in many municipal corporations. Private players are opting for urban infrastructure projects including national highway and energy projects.

National Level policies need to be framed and employees of the local bodies should be trained in order to be equipped to deal with financial institutions.