To address the growing needs of urban areas, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) initiated four central government schemes. The Smart Cities Mission covering 100 cities, the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) covering 500 cities and Swachh Bharat Mission along with Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana covering all 4041 cities in India.
The Smart Cities Mission was launched by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) to promote cities that provide core infrastructure and give a decent standard of living to citizens, a clean and sustainable environment and application of Smart solutions. The Climate Smart Cities project aims at integrating climate friendly solutions in the Smart Cities Mission and to support the Ministry to achieve National Climate Goals and Sustainable Development Goals.
100 Smart Cities have been assessed under the ClimateSmart Cities Assessment Framework in 2019. The ClimateSmart Cities Assessment Framework is a step to adopt, implement, and disseminate the best practices adopted by our cities and further set standards in comparison to the international efforts towards the green, sustainable, and resilient urban habitats. GIZ was the lead partner for MoHUA in developing the indicators and introducing the framework to the cities. This was collaboratively with the National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA), who is also an implementing partner for the CSC project. The full assessment is published under: https://smartnet.niua.org/csc/index.html
CSC Project also provided inputs to Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs to set up Climate Centre for Cities (C-Cube) under the aegis of NIUA to drive climate action in Indian cities. The centre will act as one stop shop for climate informed actions in Urban India. The centre will act as a secretariat for initiatives like ClimateSmart Cities Alliance and also implement ClimateSmart Cities Assessment Framework 2.0.
GIZ also supports the Indo German Working Group on Urbanisation, a high-ranking forum at ministerial level for the constant exchange of practices in the domains of urban planning, urban climate change, infrastructure and governance. The German Counterpart is the Federal Minsitry Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community (BMI) jointly with the Federal Ministy of Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV).
The project works with three Indian Smart Cities of Bhubaneshwar, Coimbatore and Kochi and aims at upscaling climate friendly solutions to 14 additional cities. Regular exchange events are organized between Indian and German cities for mutual learning with regard to urban climate action. The project works closely with the German institutions Technical University Berlin and the German Institute for Urban Affairs (DIFU) and the Indian institution - National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) for implementation of smart climate friendly solutions with German and Indian expertise.
International exchange between Indian and international Smart Cities is supported through the International Smart Cities Network. The Indian Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has taken a lead role in activating this Network by offering to host the first international event in India in 2021.