India faces a shortage of urban planners and with the NDA government envisaging building of 100 Smart Cities, the urban development ministry is mulling establishing institutions to train and build capacity of individuals in the field of town planning and urban mobility that in turn would help develop these hi-tech cities. The BJP government, which announced the ambitious Smart City project in Budget 2014, is well aware that the current capacity to take up such a large project is “weak” and hence it wants to train professionals in this field so that they can help build these cities in the next 20 years. Building of Smart Cities across the country, including in hilly states and areas, would require Rs 7 lakh crore and at least 20 years and the government wants to shore up most of the investment from the private sector and also involve citizens in developing these urban habitations. In this process, the government feels developing 100 Smart Cities across the country will need a large number of professionally trained manpower and several decision support systems to be in place. Senior officials told this newspaper that the ministry of urban development will take up a national programme towards capacity building through a mother institution, which will be responsible for developing curriculum, standards, contacts and ensuring quality and Regional Institutions numbering 5 to 8 which will ensure conduct of courses, adherence to standards, protocols. They also said about 50 training institutions would be established which will be responsible for actual training and capacity building. “It is expected that each of the training institute would be able to impart skills & trainings to at least 100 personnel every year. The areas of training/capacity building would primarily be town planning, urban mobility, water supply, power supply, finance and accounting (including PPPs), environmental sustainability, ICT and public participation,” the officials said, quoting the concept paper on Smart Cities. The officials said the ministry’s efforts would be towards developing a professional cadre of urban managers in the civil services.