9 new cities added to smart city list | Fusion - WeRIndia

As many people already known, smart cities is an initiative by the government where select cities will have state of the art facilities installed in them. Since its announcement, it has been one of the most anticipated initiatives. The Urban Development Ministries has added nine more cities in the list of cities which participate in the upcoming ‘Smart Cities Mission’ competition. Previously, the ministry chose 100 cities for the smart city initiative. Now the number stand at 109.

Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu announced that the ministry allowed nine more cities due to ‘political compulsion’. The nine cities include Patna, Thiruvananthapuram, Bengaluru, Amravati, Itanagar and Gangtok.

According to sources, UDM allowed the governments of Uttar Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir to nominate two cities despite the rules. It is expected that the J&K government will nominate either Srinagar or Leh in Ladakh and Uttar Pradesh will nominate either rai Bareli or Meerut.

Last year, Venkaiah Naidu has announced clear guidelines to the selection of smart cities. According to his guidelines, the selection of these cities is a two stage process. In the first stage, the state would shortlist the potential city and send it to center. In the second stage, the nominated cities would compete with each other.

The Urban Development Ministry has already selected 20 cities in January of this year. As per reports, the UDM will select 40 more by the end of 2016. According to the ministry, smart cities are selected based completely on incentives. Each city will have a score received by them for carrying out urban reforms in many areas including sanitation and governance. Based on this score, cities will be selected.

The 109 cities selected under ‘Smart Cities Mission’ will be given Rs 500 crore by the Centre over five years. This money is meant for the development of the city. The state government also have to match the Centre’s money.

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