Bhubaneswar: The housing and urban development department is set to enter into a competition with other states and Union territories to avail additional central grants for undertaking various urban infrastructure projects in the state.

The ministry of housing and urban affairs has introduced the World Bank-funded central scheme - Transformational Urban Reforms Through Performance-Based Incentives - where it will select five winners.

The scheme will be implemented in two phases - an assistance of 500 million US dollars will be given in the first phase and 1 billion US dollars will be given in second phase. In the first phase, five cities from five states will be selected through a three-stage national competition.

The objective of the scheme is to strengthen the institutional, financial and accountability system of the participating cities. The winner cities will be selected basing on their efforts to introduce various urban reform measures. The cities will get the additional funds to strengthen the reforms furthermore.

Sources said that the cities included under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (Amrut) scheme would take part in the national challenge. "We have got the details about the competition from the ministry and decided to start preparation to take part in it," said an official of the housing and urban development department.

In the first stage, the ministry will review implementation status of various projects under Amrut, Smart City Mission, Swachh Bharat Mission, Housing for All and shortlist 15 states. In the next stage, the selected states will prepare proposals for undertaking urban reforms followed which ten states will be selected.

In the final stage, the representatives from the ten states will have face-to-face interaction with the ministry's panel on how they are planning with their existing and upcoming urban reform measures. The panel will than submit the name of five winner states to the ministry and the World Bank for availing of the grants.