Minister of Urban Development and Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation Shri M.Venkaiah Naidu Addressing a 50 member strong delegation of 20-20 Investment Assn called on to explore the opportunities for investment in Urban Missions…
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Minister of Urban Development and Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation Shri M.Venkaiah Naidu today said that India is becoming world’s new investment destination as it has favourable investment climate by virtue of Government’s efforts towards ease of doing business, high GDP growth rate, demographic dividend, skilled work force, high GDP growth rate and favourable credit rating. This he stated while addressing a 50 member strong delegation of 20-20 Investment Association which called on the Minister to explore the opportunities for investment in various Urban Missions.
Shri Naidu welcomed the delegation and gave a brief overview of the Government policies to promote the investment across various sectors of the Economy. The Minister pointed out that several Global Institutions have projected India as the leading destination for FDI in the World. He emphasized that three line’ Mantra’ of the government is to reform, perform and transform. To implement these ‘Mantras’ the government has taken several steps and ease of doing business is the priority of the government. The World Bank has improved India’s ranking by 12 places in the 2016 ‘Study of Ease of Doing Business’ and the FDI has also gone up by 40%, Shri Naidu added.
Stating that resources are key to addressing huge infrastructure deficit in urban areas, Shri Naidu said that the central government is taking measures to enable increased flow of resources to urban local bodies and States which includes enhanced central assistance. He informed that under Smart City Mission, Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) and Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban), central government has committed to provide an assistance of Rs.1.13 lakh crores to improve basic urban infrastructure, till 2018-19.
Shri Naidu stated that the central government led by Shri Narendra Modi has ended the ambiguity in government’s approach to urban development since Independence as planned and well guided urbanisation is central to economic growth. He said that urban revival is being sought to be realised based on citizens’ participation, autonomy to urban local bodies and States in project formulation and their appraisal and approval, promotion of a healthy spirit of competition among urban local bodies, area based development, capacity building and enhanced resource flows to urban local bodies and States. To further boost this entire investment environment and to bring in foreign investments in the country, the Government has brought in FDI related reforms and liberalisation touching upon 15 major sectors of the Economy. The Central Government believes in co-operative federalism and greater devolution of Central Funds to States to work as one team, Shri Naidu added.
The Minister said that the Urban Development Ministry has taken initiatives to transform the Urban Sector by introducing various Missions such as Smart City Mission, AMRUT, Swacch Bharat Mission and HRIDAY. The Smart City Mission envisages for leveraging on grants provided by Government of India and State Government through PPP, Joint Ventures, Municipal Bonds, Capital Borrowings from domestic and international funding agencies, he added.
The Minister held elaborate deliberation with the delegation on the Mission implementation by the SPVs and de-risking investments. Various reform initiatives such as credit rating, value capture financing, waste to energy and waste to compost were also discussed. Answering to a query Minister also pointed out that the central theme of the Smart City Mission is Citizen participation and able leadership at local level.
The Minister appealed to the members of the delegation to invest in the Smart City Projects and assured all support from the Central Government side to facilitate investment in the Cities. The Minister told the members that any investment made in the Smart City Mission will not be repented in the future.
The 20-20 group members shown keen interest in the meeting and made specific queries about the investment opportunities in India. They thanked the Minister for providing an opportunity to meeting him on Sunday which is a holiday.
