As per a report by Equirus Research, funding for these smart cities projects and its execution will be a major challenge for companies.

“The mission is expected to improve the quality of life for citizens of these cities. For government, the focus is on sustainable and inclusive development and the idea is to look at compact areas and create a replicable model. However, the issue lies in the execution,” Equirus Securities Executive Director Pankaj Sharma said in a statement.

Drawing a parallel with the SEZ initiative, he said, “The then government had simply allowed just too many SEZs, of which most were unviable, to come up and as a result, the end result was way short of expectations.

“Similarly, we think that it would have been better if the focus would have been on a far smaller number of cities and developing them as model for others going forward.”

Under the mission, it will be operated as a centrally sponsored scheme and the centre will give financial support to the extent of Rs 48,000 crore over five years, which is on an average Rs 1,000 crore per city per year.