MUMBAI: Panchshil Realty and Developers, Switzerland’s Carbon Asset Management Ag(CAM), Korea’s Smart CityKorea (SCK) and Posco E&C have entered into an agreement to form a joint entity to identify and develop real estate projects in line with the government’s Smart City initiative in India.

The newly created joint entity, to be known as Smart City India Consortium, will develop township projects across the country and the first one of these will come up in Pune.

For the first such project to be developed in Pune’s Kharadi area, the investment is pegged at $500 million (Rs 3,200 crore). The project will be spread over 120 acres and is estimated to have 10 million sq ft smart built-up area.

“The joint venture with Smart City India is the next generation of sustainability with highest exposure to artificial intelligence. This is our first smart city-related venture and we will take this relationship further,” said Atul Chordia, chairman, Panchshil Realty.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the partnership was signed on Thursday, and the construction is expected to commence over the next three months and is expected to be completed within 36 months. Smart City India consortium shall work closely with all the government agencies to facilitate the development and its sustainability.

“Our aim at collaborating with smart city India is to redefine the low risk and high sustainable financial models for building Smart Cities for the future generations,” said Morad Fouladi, non-executive chairman of Carbon Asset Management.

“In each smart city, we would be looking at a right balance between private equity investment and debt finance backed by Exim banks and syndicated commercial banks to maximize the competence of our investments,” he said.

The Korean company will be providing the technology for the same and will be responsible for planning of these integrated projects. Smart City Korea is a master developer and in cooperation with the companies such as Smart City Dubai and Dubai Holdings is engaged in smart city projects in South Korea with an ongoing master plan of nearly 50 million sq ft.

The first project by Smart City India consortium would include features such as technologies and infrastructure solutions, including e-governance, administration, information and communication technologies (ICT), telecommunication, energy efficiency and sustainability, amongst others.

For the past two years, the government has been emphasizing on its urban renewal initiative of Smart Cities Mission with an objective of developing 100 cities across the country. The government is looking to harness technology capabilities and local area development to make these cities sustainable.

On Thursday, finance minister Arun Jaitley while presenting the Union Budget 2018-19, announced that 99 cities were selected under the government’s Smart City mission with an outlay of Rs 2.04 lakh crore. Pune was part of the first 20 cities announced under the Smart Cities Mission.