Civic services of all smart cities to be handled by digital centres

Mumbai: Smart cities in the making are set to rise to an entirely new level of monitoring and delivering civic services through digitally integrated Central Command and Control Centres, said Shri Durga Shanker Mishra, secretary (housing & urban affairs), Government of India on Friday, in Mumbai.

The Centre meanwhile announced that the benefits of interest subsidy of about Rs 2.60 lakh on home loans under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (urban) will now be available for beneficiaries belonging to the Middle Income Groups (MIG) for fifteen more months beyond December this year.

Mr Mishra, who was in the city on Friday for attending the Real Estate and Infrastructure Investors Summit organised by NAREDCO, said that these centres would serve as the ‘brain centres’ of smart cities to ensure effective coordination in the functioning of various agencies of urban local bodies, resulting in improved monitoring and delivering civic services to citizens. He said that with these centres based on a host of censors connected to a central server, will function as the ‘eyes’ and ‘ears’ of the cities. It will also help in monitoring the process of garbage collection and transportation, traffic issues and noise pollution among other things.

Mr Mishra urged that ‘the cities that are setting up such centres under the smarty city mission should ensure their timely completion so that the citizens could benefit from them at the earliest”.

Subsequently, Mr Mishra said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his announcement on December 31 last year, had made Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme (CLSS) applicable under the PMAY (Urban) for the MIG. Under CLSS, MIG beneficiaries with annual income of above Rs 6 lakh and up to Rs 12 lakh would get an interest subsidy of 4 per cent on a 20 year loan component of Rs 9 lakh. Those with annual exceeding Rs 12 lakh and up to Rs 18 lakh would get an interest subsidy of 3 per cent.