Union Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu announced the list of top Smart Cities winners on Thursday.
Advertisement
Last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream “Smart Cities” project threw up a range of vision statements with majority aiming to be clean, green and economic growth drivers. Naidu also said, “Local body and State have to work hard to upgrade their cities”.
Bhubaneswar has topped the list of 20 smart cities followed by Pune and Jaipur coming second and third. This applies more to the launch of Smart City Mission in our country,”he said”.
In December a year ago, 97 selected cities had submitted their plans to the ministry and were given Rs. 2 crore each to prepare city-level smart city plans with the assistance of technical agencies and other organizations. Each state will have at least one Smart City, which, in PM Modi’s words, translates to “very high quality of life comparable with any developed European city”.
Not all cities could be included in the challenge, as a criteria was set for selection the cities through a two-stage competition.
The Smart Cities saw the participation of 1.5 crore citizen in the planning.
“There are five capital cities among the 20 smart cities chosen”, Naidu said.
20 cities selected today will get Rs 200 crore aid from the union government in the first year while in the next three years, they will get Rs 100 crore each year.
Advertisement
The remaining 77 cities can correct their mistakes and participate in the next competition. These cities will be pollution-free and very green smart cities.
