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Smart cities key to India’s future: US Ambassador

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DQINDIA Online
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 US Ambassador to India Richard Verma on Tuesday said that with India growing rapidly, US government and industry could play a leading role in helping India manage its unprecedented growth. India will need infrastructure improvements of an estimated $ 1.5 – 2 trillion over the next 10-15 years as its population is likely to hit 1.8 billion by 2050 - and this will require massive push to build robust infrastructures including creation of smart cities. This will also require active collaboration of all. “It will take public and private initiative and cooperation to meet the needs of our future cities and their residents,” he said.

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Amitabh Kant, Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion, Ministry of Commerce said Indian government was committed to creating a predictable, transparent and enabling policy regime to ensure ease of doing business in the country. “As we get onto the trajectory of high urbanisation, we have to work with some of the finest American companies to use their technologies and solutions to drive India’s urbanisation story,” Kant added. Mr Verma further said, “American companies are adept at applying solutions around the globe and scaling them to fit context and scope, meaning the possibilities are nearly endless for US and Indian companies willing to innovate and create.”

A host of corporate leaders also reiterated their commitment to help India scale up her infrastructure facilities to give the required push to the ‘Make in India’ mission of Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi.

Terming smart infrastructure for Digital India as one ofcritical imperatives for sustainable growth, Venkatesh Kini, Coca-Cola India Pvt Ltd, President, India and South West Asia said, “It is important to have Smart Infrastructure that fuses both physical and digital infrastructure.  This smart infrastructure for Digital India should help enhance the quality of life for people and provide a clean environment.”

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An Infrastructure & Energy Capability Deck prepared by Amcham  and US-India Energy Cooperation Program was also released. “The Deck will function as a rich resource of competitive and cutting edge technologies of US expertise, products, services, know-how and solutions in fields of infrastructure, energy and smart city domains,” informed  Ajay Singha, Executive Director, Amcham- India.

“As a follow up of US President and Indian Prime Minister meeting in US last year where it was decided to establish an Infrastructure Collaboration Platform, we wish to ensure US companies participation in a strategic and structured way,” said John McCaslin, Minister Counsellor for Commercial Affairs, US Embassy.

India is expected to spend a trillion dollors through 2017 for infrastructure development in the country. While policy initiatives are key, it is equally important to put in place a sound technical infrastructure for information exchange across the infrastructure sectors of smart cities, airports, ports, roads and highways, railways, dedicated freight corridors, water/sanitation, safety and security. “I would like to emphasise the need to stay focussed on doing the easy and basic things first. Better to focus on smart solutions for cities rather than smart city solutions. We need a unified decision making structure in place for this,” added Banmali Agrawala, President  & CEO, South Asia, General Electric India Industrial Pvt Ltd.

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The US private sector through Amcham and ECP is working closely with the US Foreign Commercial Services (FCS), US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) and several financial institutions towards this. This effort seeks to bring industry and government closer to sharing information relating to upcoming project opportunities both at the central and state government levels.

Highlighting the need to upgrade social sector interventions, Varun Khanna, Managing Director, Becton Dickinson India Pvt Ltd, said, “Smart cities should also be equipped with enabling technologies to provide smart healthcare solutions such as digital health records and remote monitoring of labs.”

Kaku Nakhate, President & Country Head (India), Bank of America N.A., said, “This can provide an overview on the changes that are taking place and the efforts regulators are taking to deepen financial markets. Recent green bonds, we have done. Government initiative on deepening bond markets, Municipal bonds, infrastructure funding, etc. Financing is a link and can change the presentation once everyone chips in or wants anything more covered on financing”.

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