Week 25-31st Jan
These 20 cities will be the first to receive funds.
10 facts on Smart Cities:
1. These 20 are among the 97 towns and cities that had been chosen for the Smart City project in August after a competition between states.
2. To earn a ‘Smart’ tag, the city has to check out all the boxes that include service levels, infrastructure and track record. Proposals from states were also judged on how realistic their plan is.
3. The cities not named this time will be asked to get their act together, focus on deficiencies and prepare for Round 2 of the competition.
4. Each state will have at least one Smart City, which, in PM Modi’s words, translates to “very high quality of life comparable with any developed European city”.
5. The 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.
6. During the selection process, each state was assigned a specific number of Smart City slots based on urban population and other factors.
7. In the list of 97, Uttar Pradesh, the most populous and politically vital state, will get the most number of Smart Cities – 13.
8. Tamil Nadu will have 12 and Maharashtra will get 10 such cities. Madhya Pradesh will have seven Smart Cities and Gujarat and Karnataka will have six each.
9. In the next five years, Rs. 3 lakh crore will be spent in developing the towns to provide world class infrastructure, sustainable environment and smart solutions.
10. The Smart City mission is part of the government’s big push for urban renewal in almost 100 Indian cities and towns. While launching it last year, PM Modi had said “Urban planning should begin at the bottom.”