In the next five years, special purpose vehicles (SPVs) will be spending around Rs.1,631 billion on projects conceived under area-based development and Rs.388 billion on pan-city development.

There are many sources to fund projects envisaged by selected smart cities. One of the important means is grants by governments-state and central. In fact, the smart cities can structure themselves to monetise some of the assets under their possession and identify revenue-generating projects.

With over Rs11 lakh crore debt, project investments worth Rs.32.7 lakh crore and cost overrun of Rs14.35 lakh crore is at stake, the current Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016 is a sigh of relief for India's financial institutions.

Mumbai, June 29: Construction work in the Shendra-Bidkin node of the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) project is moving at a quick pace in Maharashtra, with the latest Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract awarded to L&T for building roads and underground utilities over 10 sq.km in the Bidkin Industrial Area.

With 59 special purpose vehicles (SPVs) in place, India's Smart Cities Mission is now ready to take off. With more than 15 tenders coming in every month, winning cities have made sure their envisaged plans are on track, albeit at a slow speed.

With 89 Smart Cities having initiated the credit rating process for municipal bonds, and instruments worth Rs.3,000 crore on the issue horizon, the fiscal future looks ideal for these prime urban spaces.

Low-cost housing is a volume business. Private companies would be interested in this business only when there is scale. The intention of the government to give this sector infra status is to offer access to low-cost funding for the sector.

With infrastructure, we expect the affordable housing segment to develop a new degree of velocity because the cost of capital is going to reduce and lenders are going to be motivated to invest money in this sector. Likewise, the tax status for development is beneficial with the infrastructure status.

The whole thing started out on the basic premise of corruption and black money. Now, the crusade against black money has morphed into a rather arcane campaign for promoting a cashless economy. Why this midcourse change of the primary objective of such a nationwide project like demonetisation?