Developer M3M India announced this week that it is to partner with Swedish consulting engineer Sweco to develop India’s first "climate-neutral smart city" in Gurugram (Gurgaon), about 30km south of New Delhi.
According to Pankaj Bansal, director of M3M, the company plans to invest around $350m in the project, some $280m of which has already been used to buy the 67ha of land earmarked for the city.
The company then hopes to attract billions of dollars in foreign investment over the next 10 years to complete the scheme. It plans to raise some of this funding by listing the city on the Swedish stock exchange.
The site is located alongside the Dwarka Expressway, an eight-lane road project begun in March that will connect Gurugram with the Indian capital.
The company plans to spend the rest of its investment building the first residential phase of the scheme on a 10ha site.
The partnership deal was signed during the India-Sweden Business Summit, which is taking place this week in Delhi. As well as its partnership with Sweco, one of Europe’s largest engineers, M3M signed deals with Urban Tech Sweden and Urban Systems.
According to The Times of India, Will Sibia, head of international business at Sweco, said: "We will act as system integrators both in terms of finance and technology. We will bring in the best in class knowledge and best in class technology and the best practices globally to create an eco-governance structure to create India’s first climate neutral city."Â
The city will be designed with a focus on water recycling and will meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on carbon emissions.
Gurugram, more popularly known as Gurgaon, is in Haryana state. It is a financial and industrial hub, and the city rated highest for human development in India.
It was also named as the city with the worst air quality in the world in a survey carried out earlier this year by Greenpeace and IQ Air Visual.
Image: Huda station in Gurugram (Varunshiv/CC BY 2.0)
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