Scheme For Circular economy in Smart Cities gets approval

Scheme For Circular economy in Smart Cities gets approval

Subject : Environment

Section: Pollution

Context:

• THE UNION Cabinet approved the City Investments to Innovate, Integrate and Sustain (CITIIS) 2.0 to promote circular economy in 18 smart cities to be selected through a competition.

Circular economy in smart cities:

• The total funding for the scheme — Rs 1,760 crore — will come from loans from French Development Agency (AFD) and Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW), a German development bank; and a grant of Rs 106 crore from the European Union, the government said in a statement.
• The programme starts this year and will run until 2027, with the support of the National Institute of Urban Affairs.
• The programme envisages to support competitively selected projects promoting circular economy with focus on:
  • integrated waste management at the city level, 
  • climate-oriented reform actions at the state level, and 
  • institu- tional strengthening and knowledge dissemination at the National level.
• The first iteration of CITIES was launched in 2018 by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), AFD, the EU and the NIUA with a total outlay of Rs 933 crore. Twelve cities out of the 100 smart cities were selected for this.
• CITIIS 2.0 will include financial and technical support for 18 cities to develop projects on climate resilience, with a focus on integrated waste management.
• In the second component, all states and UTs will be eligible for support to set up climate centers, creating state and city-level climate data observatories and ca- pacity-building for municipal staff.
• The projects likely to be funded through the scheme would be collection and transportation of waste, including transfer stations; automated recovery facilities; biomethanation plants; construction and demolition waste processing plants; and sanitary landfills.

Smart Cities Mission:

• The Smart Cities Mission was launched by the Hon’ Prime Minister on 25 June, 2015.
• The main objective of the Mission is to promote cities that provide core infrastructure, clean and sustainable environment and give a decent quality of life to their citizens through the application of ‘smart solutions’.
• It is under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
• The Mission aims to drive economic growth and improve quality of life through comprehensive work on social, economic, physical and institutional pillars of the city.
• The focus is on sustainable and inclusive development by creation of replicable models which act as lighthouses to other aspiring cities. 100 cities have been selected to be developed as Smart Cities