Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh topped a fast-track competition conducted for 23 cities by the central government.
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Of these 23 cities, only 13 could qualify for the smart city projects through the fresh competition.
The 13 cities selected in the competition have proposed a total investment of Rs 30,229 crore.
Lucknow led the pack among the winners of the fast track competition under the mission, followed by Warangal, Dharamashala, Chandigarh, Raipur, New Town Kolkata, Bhagalpur, Panaji, Port Blair, Imphal, Ranchi, Agartala, and Faridabad. Following protests from Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar over selection of smart cities in the first round, the urban development ministry held a fast-track competition to develop more such cities.
State Urban Development Minister Sudhir Sharma had met Union Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu in New Delhi this month and raised the demand for including Shimla under the Smart City Mission.
The reproduction of the story/photograph in any form will be liable for legal action. Warangal improved its smart city plan by 13 per cent.
On the occasion, Naidu released a publication titled “Urban Renaissance May 2014-May 2016” giving a detailed account of paradigm shift in attitudes and approaches to urban planning and governance, and the major drivers of urban revival and transformation set in motion during the last two years.
Of the 13 cities that just qualified for the smart city project, four are from BJP-ruled states of Chhattisgarh, Goa, Jharkhand and Haryana, while two are from Congress-governed states of Himachal Pradesh and Manipur. Twenty-three cities participated in the fast-track competition.
The smart cities would have core infrastructure such as water supply, electricity supply, sanitation, public transport, solid waste management and affordable housing, apart from robust IT connectivity and digitisation, Naidu had said earlier.
The Centre has proposed a financial support of ₹48,000 crore over five years, on an average ₹100 crore per city per year. Under area-based development proposal, seven themes were chosen to realize the potential of ABD development and make it as a lighthouse project to inspire the rest of the city to become a smart city. Of this, an investment of Rs 1.48 lakh crore has already been approved, he said.
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A smart city has different connotation in India and there is no one way of defining it.
