Bhubaneswar, March 29: The state government today formed three committees and engaged two programme management consultancies to expedite various works under the smart city project here.

The decision of forming the committees and engaging the consultancies was taken at the first meeting of the board of directors of Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited, a special purpose vehicle to execute the smart city project. Development commissioner and additional chief secretary R. Balakrishanan chaired the meeting at the state secretariat.

Principal secretary of the information technology department Pradeep Kumar Jena was appointed the head of the IT committee, while housing and urban development secretary G. Mathivathanan will head a panel for the urban infrastructure and utilities.

The special purpose vehicle's managing director Krishan Kumar will head an executive panel.

The board has also decided to engage two programme management consultancies for engineering and infrastructure related issues.

The first board meeting took place today after the Union ministry of urban development yesterday released the first central assistance of Rs 194 crore towards the smart city project. Earlier, the ministry had released Rs 6 crore to prepare a detailed project report and formation of the special purpose vehicle.

"We have received the first instalment of Rs 194 crore as central assistance to begin work on the smart city project. We have finished preparation of the detailed project report to execute the work and also formed a special purpose vehicle under the scheme," said Bhubaneswar smart city mission director Sisir Ratho.

The smart city project in Bhubaneswar will be commissioned with equal fund sharing between the state and the central governments. As the Centre had already released the first instalment, the state government will now have to provide an equal amount to the administration for beginning the work.

The special purpose vehicle will thus get nearly Rs 400 crore within the next one week to begin the work on redeveloping Bhubaneswar.

Balakrishnan today also directed all the concerned departments to appoint nodal persons as the single point of contact for the smart city project to facilitate decision making.