The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Wednesday approved the City Investments to Innovate, Integrate and Sustain 2.0 (CITIIS 2.0). According to Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur, the plan aims to support projects promoting a circular economy with a focus on integrated urban management, reported PTI.
“CITIIS 2.0 is a program conceived by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) in partnership with the French Development Agency (AFD), Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW), the European Union (EU), and National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA). The program will run for a period of four years, i.e., from 2023 till 2027,” the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs said in a statement.
The programme envisages supporting competitively selected projects promoting a circular economy with a focus on integrated waste management at the city level, climate-oriented reform actions at the state level, and institutional strengthening and knowledge dissemination at the national level.
The funding for CITIIS 2.0 would include a loan of Rs 1,760 crore or 200 million Euros with AFD and KfW contributing 100 million Euros each and a technical assistance grant of Rs 106 crore (EUR 12 million) from the EU.
The CITIIS 2.0 aims to leverage and scale up the learnings and successes of CITIIS 1.0 which was launched jointly in 2018 by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, AFD, EU, and NIUA, with a total outlay of Rs 933 crore.
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CITIIS 2.0 has three major components:
- Financial and technical support for developing projects focused on building climate resilience, adaptation, and mitigation in up to 18 smart cities through the selection of competitively selected projects promoting a circular economy with a focus on integrated waste management.
- All states and UTs will be eligible for support on-demand basis. The states will be provided support to set up/strengthen their existing state climate centres/Climate cells/ equivalents (b) create State and city-level Climate Data Observatories (c) facilitate climate-data-driven planning, develop climate action plans and (d) build capacities of municipal functionaries. To achieve these objectives, the PMU at NIUA will coordinate the provision of technical assistance and strategic support to State Governments.
- Interventions at all three levels; Centre, State and City to further climate governance in urban India through institutional strengthening, knowledge dissemination, partnerships, building capacity, research, and development to support scale-up across all States and Cities.
According to the government release, CITIIS 2.0 will supplement the climate actions through its ongoing National programs (National Mission on Sustainable Habitat, AMRUT 2.0, Swachh Bharat Mission 2.0, and Smart Cities Mission), as well as contributing positively to India’s Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) and Conference of the Parties (COP26) commitments.