After inaugurating BRICS Friendship Cities Conclave here, Naidu said, "A collaborative effort is needed by the five nations to fight social discrepancies and inequalities. They need to articulate their diplomatic and political joint interest. Less industrialised nations can learn a lot from the BRICS experience, both good and bad, and so steer their own urbanisation onto a more secure path."
The three-day programme is being organised by the Maharashtra and the Union governments, and involves top urban policy makers/planners from BRICS countries.
The experiences of BRICS and newly industrialised countries including the big Asian economies have demonstrated the power of urbanisation as an engine of development, the minister stated.
These new missions entail a total investment of about
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Rs 18 lakh crore by 2022 in urban areas in developing basic infrastructure in 500 cities with a population of above one lakh each, core infrastructure in 100 smart cities and construction of 2 crore houses for urban poor in all the 4,041 statutory cities and towns, he said.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said his government had selected 10 cities in the state to be Smart Cities, which will have IT backbone and all basic infrastructure facilities. The first Smart City of the country will be launched in Navi Mumbai, he said.