Central Government announced 27 new cities under Smart City Mission

Central Government has announced 27 new Smart Cities from the 63 cities. The announcement was made by Union Minister Shri Venkaiah Naidu in New Delhi.

About Smart City Mission :

Smart Cities Mission is an urban renewal and retrofitting program by the Government of India with a mission to develop 100 cities all over the country making them citizen friendly and sustainable.

• The Union Ministry of Urban Development is responsible for implementing the mission in collaboration with the state governments of the respective cities.
• The government of India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a vision of developing 100 smart cities as satellite towns of larger cities and by modernizing the existing mid-sized cities.
• The 100 potential smart cities were nominated by all the states and union territories based on Stage 1 criteria, prepared smart city plans which were evaluated in stage 2 of the competition for prioritizing cities for financing.
• In the first round of this stage, 20 top scorers were chosen for financing during 2015-16. The remaining will be asked to make up the deficiencies identified by the Apex Committee in the Ministry of Urban Development for participation in the next two rounds of competition. 40 cities each will be selected for financing during the next rounds of competition.
• A total of₹980 billion (US$15 billion) has been approved by the Indian Cabinet for development of 100 smart cities and rejuvenation of 500 others. For the smart cities mission,Rs.48,000 crore (US$7.1 billion) and for the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), a total funding of Rs.50,000 crore (US$7.4 billion) has been approved by the Cabinet.
• First batch of 20 cities selected in the second stage of competition will be provided with central assistance of₹2 billion (US$30 million) each during this financial year followed byRs.1 billion (US$15 million) per year during the next three years.
• The remaining money has to come from the states, urban bodies and the consortium that they form with corporate entities. Also, 10 per cent of budget allocation will be given to states / union territories as incentive based on achievement of reforms during the previous year.
• Urban Development Ministry had earlier released Rs.2 crore (US$300,000) each to mission cities for preparation of Smart City Plans.
• The cities selected have started project preparations and implementation. The projects launched by Ahmedabad were “sewage treatment plant, housing project and smart learning in municipal schools”. Bhubaneswar launched “railway multi-modal hub, traffic signalisation project and urban knowledge centre”. New Delhi Municipal Council launched “mini-sewerage treatment plants, 444 smart class rooms, WiFi, smart LED streetlights, city surveillance, command and control centre”.

To make the cities smart the 3 basic ingredients are required:

1. Good Roads – Internal city wise Roads and it’s connectivity outside.
2. Sufficient water both drinking and non-drinking
3. Electricity

27 New Cities :

The Golden Temple city of Amritsar topped the list of 27 new smart cities and eight other cities of pilgrim and tourism importance that made  to the third list of smart cities are ; Ujjain, Tirupati, Agra, Nashik, Madurai, Thanjavur, Ajmer and Varanasi. With this the number of cities selected under Smart City Mission for financing implementation of smart city plans has gone up to 60.

• The 27 cities selected in the ‘Smart City Challenge’ competition in order of the marks scored by them are:

The new 27 smart cities have proposed an investment of Rs.66,883 cr under smart city plans including Rs.42,524 cr under Area Based Development and another Rs.11,379 cr for technology based Pan-city solutions that benefits all the citizens of respective cities. It is noted that with this, the total investment proposed by the 60 cities selected so far has gone up to Rs.1,44,742 cr.

• The 27 smart cities announced today are from 12 States including 5 from Maharashtra, 4 each from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, 3 from Uttar Pradesh and 2 each from Punjab and Rajasthan. Nagaland and Sikkim have made it to the smart city list for the first time.