PIB

Background:

Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs constitutes committee to identify and designate institutions as Centres of Excellence.

Details:

The Union Minister of Finance, in the budget 2022-23 speech, has announced that “for developing India specific knowledge in urban planning and design, and to deliver certified training in these areas, up to five existing academic institutions in different regions will be designated as centres of excellence. These centres will be provided endowment funds of Rs. 250 crores each.”  

In order to steer the process of identifying and designating institutions as Centres of Excellence (CoEs), Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has constituted a committee comprising of officials from MoHUA, Department of Higher Education (Ministry of Education), All India Council for Technical Education, NITI Aayog and leading domain experts. 

Functions of the committee:

1.To identify the parameters for evaluating the institution’s capacity to undertake training and capacity building programmes.

2.To lay down the process for selection of institutions to be designated as CoEs.

3.To recommend five CoEs, one from each region, based on the challenge competition.

4.To suggest list of subjects on which India specific knowledge may be created and training and capacity building may be provided by the CoEs. 

The committee published a list including some subjects, like-

1.Transit Oriented Development.

2.Transferrable Development Rights.

3.Micro level planning through Town Planning Schemes.

4.Micro level planning through Local Area Plan.

5.Urban water supply.

6.Sewage management, treatment and disposal.

7.Urban greening to mitigate heat island effect and tackle air pollution.

Apart from these, the committee also proposed some another steps , like-

i)Issuance of guidelines.

(ii) Inviting proposals from academic institutions.

(iii) Evaluation of proposals.

(iv) Final selection of five academic institutions for designating them as centres of excellence.