Saamna criticises Smart Cities mission

MUMBAI: An editorial in the Sena mouthpiece Saamna on Monday criticised the Centre’s ambitious Smart Cities Mission and called it a plan to control Mumbai from New Delhi. It said that the plan, the Centre’s most ambitious scheme for urban centres, would lead to the creation of a ‘new underworld’.

Drawing references to the shifting of important government offices out of the city and Gujarat chief minister Anandiben Patel’s statements in the past asking businesses to invest in Gujarat instead of Mumbai, the Sena said such a move was a ploy to gain control over Mumbai.

Ironically, the Sena had been vociferous in its demand that the same Smart Cities project be implemented in Navi Mumbai, after the ruling Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) had opposed it on the very grounds that the Sena has today opposed it over. To add to the irony, local Shiv Sena leader Vijay Chougule had even gone to meet the chief minister and asked him to intervene and ensure that the satellite city did not lose out on the project.

Nonetheless, the Sena has now launched an all-out attack on the project and protested, primarily, the creation of the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) that the project will be implemented by, in each city. The SPV, as per guidelines, will have a chief executive officer (CEO) heading it and will be directly in charge of expending the Rs100 crore a year grant that each city will be eligible for.

The Sena’s main contention, according to the editorial, was that such an SPV was akin to establishing a parallel government and would bypass elected representatives in the city. “If the Centre thinks that by creating these 100 Smart Cities, it can control 100 urban centres then this is nothing short of dictatorship.”