Maha smart city proposals worth Rs 29647 cr, Rajasthan’s Rs 6457 cr: Govt to name 20 winners today

The first 20 cities to be developed as smart cities will be announced on Thursday, Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said on Wednesday.

There are 97 cities in the Smart City Challenge, and the names of the first 20 winners of the competition will be announced on Thursday, Naidu said.

These cities will be developed to have basic infrastructure through assured water and power supply, sanitation and solid waste management, efficient urban mobility and public transport, IT connectivity, e-governance and citizen participation.

Naidu was addressing about 100 senior officers of Army, Navy, Air Force and civil service, including 25 foreign officials, participating in a course on ‘National Security and Strategic Studies’ at the National Defence College here.

In the subsequent years, the government will announce 40 cities each to be developed as Smart Cities as per Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s plan to develop 100 Smart Cities in the country.

Rajasthan was the first state to submit Smart City plans last month. The state has proposed total investment of Rs 6,457 crore over the next five years for developing Ajmer, Jaipur, Kota and Udaipur as Smart Cities.

The other key states which have submitted their Smart City plans are West Bengal, Kerala, Punjab, Jharkhand, Karnataka and Maharashtra.

While Punjab has submitted a Smart City plan for Jalandhar, Jharkhand did so for Ranchi while Kerala handed in the proposal for Kochi.

Bengal has submitted plans for New Town Kolkata, Bidhannagar and Durgapur.

Karnataka submitted Smart City proposals for Davanagere, Tumakuru, Hubli-Dharwad and Shimoga.

Union Territory Puducherry, meanwhile, submitted its proposal for Oulgaret.

Maharashtra has submitted plans for 10 cities, including Mumbai, with an estimated cost of Rs 29,647.45 crore. The Mumbai proposal estimate of just Rs 1,118 crore is the lowest among all the 10 cities.

The Thane Municipal Corporation’s proposal with an estimate of Rs 6,630 crore tops the list, followed by Amravati worth Rs 5,305 crore and Nagpur – Rs 3,409 crore.

The other cities to submit their estimated proposals include Pune – Rs 2,932 crore, Solapur – Rs 2,921 crore, Kalyan-Dombivali – Rs 2,057 crore, Nashik – Rs 1,945 crore and Navi Mumbai – Rs 1,734 crore.

A total of 98 cities have been included in the Smart City Mission which have a cumulative population of about 13 crore and together account for 35 percent of the urban population in the country.

In order to support development of smart cities, the Urban Development Ministry has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Bloomberg Philanthropies, which will work as Knowledge Partner and support development and execution of a Cities Challenge under the Smart Cities Mission.

The Cabinet had approved the Smart Cities Mission in April this year and subsequently the Prime Minister launched this Mission on June 25, when the Mission Statement and Guidelines were also released.