New Delhi: The Union Cabinet today approved the City Investments to Innovate, Integrate and Sustain 2.0 (CITIIS 2.0) programme which envisages supporting competitively selected projects promoting 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 programme is 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). It will run for a period of four years, from 2023 to 2027.
The funding for CITIIS 2.0 would include a loan of Rs.1760 crore (EUR 200 million) from AFD and KfW (EUR 100 million each) and a technical assistance grant of Rs.106 crore (EUR 12 million) from the EU.
CITIIS 2.0 aims to leverage and scale up the learnings and “successes of CITIIS 1.0”.
CITIIS 1.0 was launched jointly in 2018 by MoHUA, AFD, EU, and NIUA, with a total outlay of ₹933 crores (EUR 106 million), and consisted of the following three components:
- 12 city-level projects, selected through a competitive process.
- Capacity-development activities in the State of Odisha.
- Promoting integrated urban management at the national level through activities undertaken by NIUA, which was the Programme Management Unit (PMU) for CITIIS 1.0
Technical assistance was made available under the program at all three levels through domestic experts, international experts, and transversal experts. It has resulted in the mainstreaming of innovative, integrated and sustainable urban development practices through a unique challenge-driven financing model based on the principles of competitive and cooperative federalism.
Following the CITIIS 1.0 model, 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 (a) 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.
CITIIS 2.0 will supplement the climate actions of the Government of India through its ongoing National programmes (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.
– global bihari bureau
