Mumbai, Bengaluru, Patna not in Smart City list

Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday unveiled the list of 98 urban centres that will be transformed into ‘smart cities’ over the next five years. Surprisingly, state capitals like Mumbai, Bengaluru and Patna don’t figure in the list, which was revealed three months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched Smart City Mission (SCM) on June 25 this year.

Out of the 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 <g data-gr-id="28">tourism influenced</g> areas, five are port cities and three are education and healthcare hubs.

In an intra-state competition, Uttar Pradesh topped the list with its 13 urban areas meeting the smart-cities criteria fixed by the Urban Development Ministry, followed by Tamil Nadu with the selection of 12 towns to be developed on the lines of smart cities.

Among the BJP-ruled states, Maharashtra topped the list with 10 towns figuring in the list followed by Madhya Pradesh (7 cities) and Gujarat (6), the home state of Modi. Three cities have qualified in the poll-bound Bihar — Biharsharif, Muzaffarpur and Bhagalpur. It’s worth mentioning here that Biharsharif is in Nalanda district, the home turf of Bihar CM Nitish Kumar.

Sources said that Jammu and Kashmir wanted time to decide between Jammu and Srinagar as its nominee for the project, while UP is yet to send the details for nominating Rae Bareily, the constituency of Congress president Sonia Gandhi. During the selection process, each state was assigned a specific number of Smart City slots based on urban population among other factors.

Uttar Pradesh got <g data-gr-id="34">maximum number</g> of cities with Ghaziabad, Kanpur, Allahabad, Rampur, Agra and Aligarh getting selected. Navi Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur and Thane also made the cut from Maharashtra. <g data-gr-id="30">North-eastern</g> towns and cities like Guwahati, Kohima, Imphal, Aizawl, Shillong and Agartala have also been selected for re-development.

According to Naidu, the Centre will release Rs 2 crore for each of the 98 cities for <g data-gr-id="38">preparation</g> of Smart City plans in the next couple of days. “The Ministry has set up region-wise panels of “reputed agencies for assisting smart city aspirants” to draft the plans of developing the qualified urban centres,” the minister said.

In reply to a question as when will the work commence, Naidu said: “The plan is to declare cities in three parts. In the first phase, names of top 20 cities would be finalised by the year end, while work to develop those will begin by January next. While in the second phase 40 cities would be selected and rest in the final stage.”