According to Venkaiah Naidu, Minister for Urban Development, the government intends to develop 100 cities into smart cities to begin with over a period of five years. Converting a city into a smart city requires huge amount of reserves.
The programme will basically be executed through the public-private partnership (PPP) model. The Centre will be spending around Rs 48,000 crore and an equal amount has to be spent by the states. Tax incremental financing, municipal bonds and leveraging of loans from bilateral and multilateral agencies like Asian Development Bank and World Bank will be used.