LIST OF 98 SMART CITIES ANNOUNCED BY GOVT

Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu Thursday unveiled the list of 98 urban centres that will be transformed into 'smart cities' over the next five years.

In an intra-state competition, Uttar Pradesh topped the list with its 13 urban areas meeting the smart-cities criteria, followed by Tamil Nadu, which got an approval for developing 12 towns into smart cities.

“In the next couple of days,” said Mr. Naidu while addressing a press conference, “we will release Rs. 2 Crores for each of the 98 cities for preparation of smart city plans.”

The Ministry, Mr. Naidu said, has set up region-wise panels of “reputed agencies for assisting smart city aspirants” to draft the plans of developing the qualified urban centres.

Out of 98 cities and towns that five years down will graduate into smart cities, 24 are capital cities, another 24 are business and industrial centres, 18 are culture and tourism influenced areas, five are port cities and three are education and health care hubs.

About nine major cities such as Bengaluru, Kolkata, Shimla, Puducherry, Daman, Patna, Itanagar, Thiruvananthapuram and Gangtok did not qualify the smart city criteria. “This non-inclusion goes to prove that the selection in the first stage of competition was not swayed by the status or importance of the cities and the selection was objective and as per the stipulated criteria,” Mr. Naidu said.

Mr. Naidu said that the Urban Development Ministry will provide Rs. 100 Crores to each city over the next five years.

The success of the government’s Smart City Mission is largely dependent upon the finance generation at the State level as well as private investments. The central government has set aside Rs. 48,000 crores for the mission and the money will be released to urban local bodies in frequent intervals in the next five years. The central government has asked the State governments to generate the rest of the Rs. 48,000 crores as the grand total of the mission is estimated at Rs. 96,000 crore.

Here is the list of states and number of cities that have been nominated by the government:

Andaman and Nicobar Islands 1 (Port Blair)

Andhra Pradesh 3 (Vishakhapatnam, Tirupati, Kakinada)

Arunachal Pradesh 1 (Pasighat)

Assam 1 (Guwahati)

Bihar 3 (Muzaffarpur, Bhagalpur, Biharsharif)

Chandigarh 1

Chhattisgarh 2 (Raipur, Bilaspur)

Dadra and Nagar Haveli 1 (Silvassa)

Daman and Diu 1 (Diu)

Delhi 1 (NDMC)

Goa 1 (Panaji)

Gujarat 6 (Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, Dahod)

Haryana 2 (Karnal Faridabad)

Himachal Pradesh 1 (Dharamshala)

Jharkhand 1 (Ranchi)

Karnataka 6 (Mangaluru, Belagavi, Shivamogga, Hubballi-Dharwad, Tumakuru, Davanegere)

Kerala 1 (Kochi)

Lakshadweep 1 (Kavarrati)

Madhya Pradesh 7 (Bhopal, Indore, Jabalpur, Gwalior, Sagar, Satna, Ujjain)

Maharashtra 10 (Navi Mumbai, Nashik, Thane, Greater Mumbai, Amravati, Solapur, Nagpur, Kalyan-Dombivali, Aurangabad, Pune )

Manipur 1 (Imphal)

Meghalaya 1 (Shillong)

Mizoram 1 (Aizawl)

Nagaland 1 (Kohima)

Odisha 2 (Bhubaneshwar, Raurkela)

Puducherry 1 (Oulgaret)

Punjab 3 (Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar)

Rajasthan 4 (Jaipur, Udaipur, Kota, Ajmer)

Sikkim 1 (Namchi)

Tamil Nadu 12 (Tiruchirapalli, Chennai, Tiruppur, Coimbatore, Vellore, Salem, Erode,  Thanjavur, Tirunelveli, Dindigul, Madurai, Thoothukudi)

Telangana 2 (Greater Hyderabad, Greater Warangal)

Tripura 1 (Agartala)

Uttar Pradesh 13 (Moradabad, Aligarh, Saharanpur, Bareilly, Jhansi, Kanpur, Allahabad, Lucknow, Varanasi, Ghaziabad, Agra, Rampur)

Uttarakhand 1 (Dehradun)

West Bengal 4 (New Town Kolkata, Bidhannagar, Durgapur, Haldia)

* Jammu & Kashmir has asked for more time to decide on the potential cities)

* 12 cities have been shortlisted from Uttar Pradesh against 13 cities nominated for Smart City project