• Agreements worth more than Rs 1,800 crore were signed between the Centre and the states under CITIIS 2.0 during the 12th Regional 3R and Circular Economy Forum in Asia and the Pacific in Jaipur.

• Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said 18 cities in 14 states of India have been selected as ‘Lighthouse Projects’ under CITIIS 2.0, which include Srinagar, Jaipur, Udaipur, Rajkot, Ujjain, Jabalpur, Panaji, Thiruvananthapuram, Thanjavur, Madurai, Belgaum, Bilaspur, Kolkata, Agartala, Guwahati, Muzaffarpur, Agra and Bareilly. 

• These 18 cities will focus on circular economy and integrated waste management.

• They will also receive financial and technical assistance under CITIIS 2.0, which will enable them to implement end-to-end waste management, the minister said.

What is CITIIS programme?

• City Investments to Innovate, Integrate and Sustain (CITIIS) is a sub-component of the Centre’s Smart Cities Mission.

• The three key areas of CITIIS 2.0 are urban development based on a  circular economy, integrated waste management, and climate resilience through green infrastructure.

• CITIIS Challenge was launched in partnership with Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and European Union, to extend a loan of €100 million for implementation of up to 15 innovative projects selected through an All-India Challenge in four sectors — sustainable mobility, public open spaces, urban governance & ICT and social and organisational innovation in low-income settlements. 

• It was launched on July 9, 2018.

• In May 2023, the government approved the CITIIS 2.0. 

• CITIIS 2.0 has been conceived by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) in partnership with the French Development Agency (AFD), KreditanstaltfürWiederaufbau (KfW), the European Union (EU), and National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA). 

• The period of the programme would be for four years. 

CITIIS 2.0 has three major components:

i) Component-1: Financial and technical support for up to 18 Smart Cities for projects promoting circular economy with focus on integrated waste management.

ii) Component-2: Support to all states/UTs for climate action.

iii) Component-3: Interventions at national level to support scale-up across all cities and towns.

• Recommendations of states and cities have been taken into account during the design of CITIIS 2.0.

• Under CITIIS 2.0, states will be provided assistance on a demand basis. 

Additional Read:

What is circular economy?

A circular economy entails markets that give incentives to reusing products, rather than scrapping them and then extracting new resources. This is a departure from the traditional, linear economic model, which is based on a ‘take-make-consume-throw away’ pattern. A circular economy reduces material use, redesigns materials, products, and services to be less resource intensive, and recaptures “waste” as a resource to manufacture new materials and products.

Manorama Yearbook app is now available on Google Play Store and iOS App Store