Surpassed Round -1 and Round – 2 Smart Cities in implementation- Took a leap to 46th rank from 90th rank
- Most projects in execution phase
- Set to complete major projects by 2022
Thiruvananthapuram: Smart City Thiruvananthapuram Ltd (SCTL), SPV for the heritage and administrative capital city of Kerala, vigorously surpassed the other cities of India’s prestigious 100 Smart City Mission by steadily rolling out smart city works and progressing ahead in implementation.
SCTL over took the other smart cities of the mission that got selected in Round -1 and Round – 2 which had the head start advantage of 2.5 years.
The ranking of Thiruvananthapuram has improved to 46 from 90 due to the concerted effort taken by the SPV to tender out all projects and issue work orders to all its projects in 2020.
The mission works on a competitive mode where cities performance is constantly monitored by the Smart City Mission using a ranking system which is based on performances indices which has to be updated by respective cities officials periodically on the Ministry’s portal.
“This success has been achieved by the complete and proactive support of the Hon LSGD Minister, Chief Secretary, Hon Mayor of Trivandrum Corporation, Principal Secretary LSGD, and the team effort of SCTL – SPV and M/s IPE Global – PMC” said P Bala Kiran, IAS, CEO, SCTL.
Even though 2020 was a COVID-19 affected year, SPV worked on war footing basis to tender out all projects and issue work orders and the increase in ranking can be attributed to the same.
CEO, SCTL
SCTL has taken a lead by moving ahead of 1st round cities like Delhi, Jabalpur, Bhuvaneshwar and 2nd round cities like Warangal, Raipur, Panaji, Faridabad, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Dharamshala etc and 3rd round cities like Bengaluru, Shimla, Puducherry, Srinagar, Jammu etc.
Most of the projects undertaken by SCTL has entered the execution phase and the project completion of each project would substantially increase the ranking in future months. Many of the projects are scheduled for completion in 2021 and the mega projects like Smart Roads, Palayam Market Redevelopment, Chalai warehousing, Rajajinagar Slum redevelopment etc. are expected to be completed by 2022.
Smart City Mission for 100 Cities was rolled out by Government of India in June 2015 and first round of cities (20 Cities) were selected by Jan 2016. 40 cities selected by Sept 2016 in the second round of city selection.
Thiruvananthapuram was one of the cities (out of 30) selected in the third round of Smart City Mission in June 2017 with the highest score securing first rank. The other 29 cities which were selected in this round were Bengaluru, Naya Raipur, Patna, Gandhinagar, Aizawl, Gangtok, Jammu, Puducherry etc.
Thiruvananthapuram and other third round cities are competing against 60 cities selected in the first and second round of Smart Cities Mission.
SCTL was incorporated as company on 30th August2017 and the process for selection of PMC which is vital for project preparation was started in 2017.
After the initial delays in PMC selection, the PMC was selected and awarded work on 14th May 2018.
SCTL has so far tendered out projects worth Rs. 1082.21 Cr. and issued work orders for projects worth Rs. 1035.8 Cr. out of Smart Cities grant allocation of Rs. 1135 Cr from Centre, State and Corporation.
