20 cities named for Smart City facelift

Bhubaneswar emerged as the topmost city among the 20 cities which were on Thursday shortlisted to be developed as part of the first batch of the Smart City initiative of the Centre. The NDMC area of Delhi is also among the selected cities.

Some of the other prominent cities selected include Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Jaipur and Bhopal.

Urban development minister M. Venkaiah Naidu announced the first list of 20 cities which will be developed to have basic infrastructure.

Assured water and power supply, sanitation and solid waste management systems, efficient urban mobility and public transportation, IT connectivity, e-governance and citizen participation are some of the highlights of the initiative.

Surat, Kochi, Jabalpur, Visakhapatnam, Solapur, Davanagere, Indore, Coimbatore, Kakinada, Belagavi, Udaipur, Guwahati, and Ludhiana are the other cities selected in the first batch.

“Nobody can stop an idea whose time has come and this applies to the Smart City (initiative as well),” Mr Naidu said while announcing the list of cities that were selected through the Smart City challenge competition.

Congratulating the winners, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “I wish the cities the very best as they move forward with implementation and transform urban India.”

The contest was as rigorous and demanding as the civil services competition, Mr Naidu quipped.

“For the first time in the country and perhaps in the world, investments in urban development are being made based on a competition among cities. The results of the competition revealed the unrecognised strength of our federal structure,” he said.

The cities have won based on implementation framework, including feasibility and cost-effectiveness (30 per cent), result orientation (20 per cent), citizen participation (16 per cent), smartness of proposal (10 per cent), strategic plan (10 per cent), vision and goals (5 per cent), evidence-based and key performance (5 per cent) and processes followed (4 per cent).

Naidu said that the various states selected the cities and sent a list of 97 names, out of which 20 have been selected.

A bottom-up rather than top-down approach has been the key planning principle under Smart City Mission, he said.

KINDLY TAKE IN BOX

List of 20 smart cities: Bhubaneshwar NDMC area of Delhi Pune Ahmedabad Chennai Jaipur Bhopal Surat Kochi Jabalpur Visakhapatnam Solapur Davanagere Indore Coimbatore Kakinada Belagavi Udaipur Guwahati Ludhiana