Cabinet approves CITIIS 2.0 from 2023 to 2027 with a focus on circular economy
The scheme, approved by the Union cabinet at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will run for a period of four years, from 2023 till 2027
Furthering its smart cities programme, the Union cabinet on Wednesday approved the ‘City Investments to Innovate, Integrate and Sustain 2.0 (CITIIS 2.0)’, to 18 more cities with an outlay of over Rs.1,700 crore.
The scheme, approved by the Union cabinet at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will run for a period of four years, from 2023 till 2027.
Announcing the scheme, union minister of information and broadcasting Anurag Thakur said that the programme will include the construction of a circular economy with related projects such as combined waste management, climate change observatories and institutional strengthening and knowledge dissemination at the national level.
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The funding for CITIIS 2.0 would include a loan of Rs.1,760 crore (EUR 200 million) from AFD and KfW (EUR 100 million each) and a technical assistance grant of Rs.106 crore (EUR 12 million) from the EU, Thakur told reports on Wednesday.
CITIIS 2.0 is a program conceived by the ministry of housing and urban affairs (MoHUA) in partnership with the French Development Agency (AFD), Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW), the European Union (EU), and National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA).
The cities will have to apply to the government and will be shortlisted by a panel for final approval, officials familiar with the matter said.
The programme has three components – firstly, financial and technical support for developing projects focused on building climate resilience, adaptation and mitigation in up to 18 smart cities through the selection of competitively selected projects promoting a circular economy with a focus on integrated waste management.
Secondly, all states and Union Territories will be eligible for support on-demand basis. The states will be provided support to (a) set up/strengthen their existing state climate centres/ climate cells/ equivalents (b) create state and city-level climate data observatories (c) facilitate climate-data-driven planning, develop climate action plans and (d) build capacities of municipal functionaries. To achieve these objectives, the Program Management Unit (PMU) at NIUA will coordinate the provision of technical assistance and strategic support to state governments.
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And thirdly, interventions at all three levels– Centre, State and City– to further climate governance in urban India through institutional strengthening, knowledge dissemination, partnerships, building capacity, research and development to support scale-up across all States and Cities.
The new scheme aims to leverage and scale up the learnings and successes of CITIIS 1.0 which was launched in 2018.
At present, 12 cities are already covered by the first tranche of the programme. More than 50 products and 150 technical documents have been created for urban practitioners. These include toolkits, templates, studies and plans on various aspects of project implementation, which can be accessed on this website.
