Surat Resilience Enhancement Project

dropped

Failure

The proposed Surat Resilience Enhancement Project (SREP) is expected to support the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) and the Tapi River Front Development Corporation Limited (TRFDCL) in implementing the Tapi Riverfront Rejuvenation Plan (TRRP) within the broader context of mainstreaming resilience in municipal operations and increasing resilience of the city to extreme flood and heat events, ensuring sustainability of resilient infrastructure development through leverage of own source revenues including land value capture mechanisms, achieving economic rejuvenation of the riverfront area, and integrating nature-based and green infrastructure solutions into the riverfront development. The TRRP is seeking to bend the curve by taking a resilience approach to riverfront development instead of a simple placemaking approach which is common to riverfront development projects in India. SMC is updating its draft conceptual master plan for the TRRP spread along 33.6 km on each side of Tapi river between the Kathore Bridge to a proposed barrage downstream of Singanpore wier. TRRP is expected to construct new embankments where required as well as inspect and strengthen existing embankments and dykes on the riverfront while making space available for increased economic, recreational and cultural activities. These activities are proposed to be implemented in two phases: Phase I, an up to10 km river stretch along both banks between the proposed barrage (connecting Rundh and Bhata) and the Singanpore weir; and Phase II, the remaining 23.6 km river stretch along both banks upstream from the Singanpore weir to the Kathore bridge. Through these interventions, the SMC expects to reduce the city’s flooding risks and beautify the cityscape to induce recreational, tourism and commercial activities, as well as prevent saltwater intrusion through the construction of the proposed Barrage (to be financed by SMC separately, i.e. non-World Bank financing). The proposed SREP Project will implement Phase I of the TRRP, and intends to set the technical, quality, legal, aesthetic, and E&S practices benchmarks for the following phase to follow, whether or not this is financed by the World Bank.The SREP will bring in international good practices in urban riverfront development and resilient infrastructure service delivery including: (i) interventions needed to make “room for the river”, while ensuring the livelihood of residents; (ii) incorporating shared spaces along the riverbanks for the river and for people, guided by ecological thinking; (iii) an inclusive development approach with proactive and continuous stakeholder engagement to define the multiple uses of spaces; as well as (iv) a sustainable financial and operational model to help the SMC, including through TRFDCL, manage its infrastructure assets and sustain effective and efficient service delivery in the long run. Public spaces along the river will be treated as a city public good and will get a careful, site and community specific programming and participatory design, that attends to city needs and cultural practices. The output of the investments will not only enhance the flood risk management capacity of the city and improve the living conditions of the residents, but also enhance economic development opportunities for both the public and the private sectors.The SREP suggests interventions under three complementary pillars. The 'resilience pillar' focuses on delivery of the TRRP as explained above. The 'institutions pillar' focuses on institutionalizing climate resilience actions in SMC including assigning one of the existing special implementation units called 'Cells' in SMC as the 'Climate Action Unit' (CAU) for quality assurance of all large investment projects and sectoral strategies and coordinating all climate resilience related matters. The CAU will serve as the anchor and nerve center for advancing SMC’s ambition of becoming the first ‘Green Municipal Corporation’ of India. The 'finance pillar' focuses on strengthening the investment planning and financial management systems, upgrading existing asset management MIS, upgrading procedures for disposition of monetizable assets, supporting SMC in undertaking pilot land monetization transactions especially focusing on land parcels falling within the TRRP, strengthening systems and procedures for management of unused and underused real estate, and building SMC’s technical capacity to manage the new real estate portfolio management system, in addition to looking at avenues for leveraging other land value capture tools through strengthening of real estate-based fees and policies including floor space index (FSI) and transferrable development rights (TDR). The three pillars will be supplemented by project management support and capacity augmentation. The four proposed components of SREP will be: Component 1: Resilient Urban Infrastructure Investments- C1.1: Tapi riverfront development investments proposed in Phase I of the TRRP, including: (i) flood risk control and resilience enhancement through a combination of green infrastructure (nature-based solutions) and grey infrastructure (engineered solutions and embankments) to arrive at a solution that achieves a harmonious balance between interventions on flood protection, urban ecology and urban riverfront amenity provision; (ii) public space enhancement and land redevelopment to increase the amenities and economic opportunities for the residents and business owners along the riverfront; and (iii) enhancement of cultural heritage assets and infrastructure along the riverfront that promote cultural tourism.- C1.2: Select supplementary resilient infrastructure investments, including a drainage interceptor project to rehabilitate the drainage outfall system along Tapi river, and small additional essential investments not proposed under TRRP such as access roads/mobility, etc. Component 2: Institutional Strengthening on Resilience Planning - C1.1: Institutional resilience and climate mainstreaming including setting-up and operationalization of the Climate Action Unit which would lead mainstreaming of climate and resilience actions in SMC including through translation of the existing second-generation climate strategy into a costed Climate Action Plan (CAP), mainstreaming disaster and climate resilience in all large projects of SMC, initiating green budgeting, setting up green accounting codes, exploring green financing through green municipal bonds and PPPs, fostering inter- and intra-departmental coordination, capacity building of SMC staff, developing a one-city one-map approach that ensures coordination between all developmental projects of SMC, among others. - C1.2: Operationalizing an integrated multi-hazard early warning system (EWS) and emergency response system (ERS) including modernization of the Hydromet monitoring network, including the development of a concept of operation (CONOPS) for key stakeholders, modernization in current EWS and ERS towards feeding into development of a multi-hazard EWS and ERS defining the development of a hydrological-hydraulic model for the forecasting, guidance and dissemination on flood warning in Surat as well as other hazards such as urban heat, vector borne pandemics, etc., integration with SMC's Command and Control Center (CCC) towards possible hosting of the integrated multi-hazard EWS and ERS, improve early warning dissemination systems, capacity building of SMC for disaster preparedness and response, among others. Component 3: Municipal Finance Improvement - C3.1: Enhancing overall performance on municipal finance of SMC, including technical assistance to help the SMC improve its capacity, systems, and practices in financial management, including towards integrating climate strategies, plans, and policies in fiscal and public financial management, as well as climate budget tagging for resilient urban development investments.- C2.2: Improving revenue performance of the SMC, thr

World Bank Group

Project

Road, Water Supply and Storage, Bridge, Waste Processing and Treatment, Hotel, Residential, Government, Commercial