20 Smart Cities: Bhub, Pune get pride of place

The capital city of Odisha topped the city challenge competition followed by Pune and Jaipur coming at second and third respectively. The others on the list include Surat, Kochi and Ahmedabad.

Surprisingly, Varanasi – the parliamentary seat of Prime Minister Narendra Modi – stands at the second last position at 97, one position above Dehradun. While no city from poll-bound West Bengal is in the list and Delhi’s New Delhi Municipal Corporation also known as Lutyens’ Delhi is at 12th position. 

In Shivraj Singh Chouhan led Madhya Pradesh- three cities have made the cut, which include Bhopal, Jabalpur and Indore. No city from the state of Bihar, where BJP recently lost in the assembly polls, managed to make to the list.

While unveiling the list, Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah 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.”

Countering aspersions on any political preferences in the selection of cities, Naidu said that there was no role of Centre in the selection process as was evident from the fact that his own city did not make the cut. “The states selected cities and sent us a list of 97 names. There was a competition among these names and 20 cities have been selected,” Naidu said, adding, “Bottom up approach has been the key planning principle under Smart City Mission.”

“The Smart City Challenge Competition was as rigorous and demanding as the civil services competition,” Naidu quipped. PM Modi’s plan is to develop 100 smart cities in the country.

The government plans to build these smart cities by 2022 to help accommodate swelling urban population, which is set to rise by more than 400 million people to 814 million by 2050. The cities are competing on a variety of matrices, including urban reforms and their plan of action in four key areas – Swachh Bharat, Make in India, good governance (modern accounting system, rationalisation of property taxes) and e-governance. Naidu said that a total of 15.20 million (1.52 crore) citizens had participated in the preparation of the ambitious Smart City plans at various stages. 

The Centre and states will equally split the overall cost of the project pegged at Rs 96,000 crore. The central government will provide on an average Rs 100 crore per chosen city per year.