New Delhi: As Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Smart City' project picks up pace, the state capitals of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Telangana, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Assam have made it to the Smart cities list, a newspaper report said on Saturday.
The central government has set a target of 100 smart cities to be built in the coming years.
Some smaller cities have outdone the state capitals to bag the place in the list.
Small towns like Bihar Sharif, Moradabad, Saharanpur, Dharamsala and Shivamogga in Karnataka have been nominated by the states. The big cities like Kolkata, Patna, Benagluru have failed to found a place in the nominations list.
In the first phase, Centre will pick 20 cities to be developed as Smart Cities and in the next two years 40 cities each will be selected for receiving central funding of Rs 500 crore in the next five years.
Here is the list of cities nominated by the states:
Uttar Pradesh: Allahabad, Luknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, Agra, Aligarh
Maharashtra: Navi Mumbai, Greater Mumbai, Nagpur, Thane, Nasik, Solapur, Amravati
West Bengal: New Town Kolkata, Bidhan Nagar, Durgapur, Haldia
Gujarat: Ahmedabad, Gandhi Nagar, Surat, Rajkot, Vadodara
Karnataka: Shivamogga, Mengaluru, Balagavi, Davangere
Andhra Pradesh: Kakinada, Tirupati, Vishakhapatnam
Rajasthan: Jaipur, Kota, Ajmer, Udaipur
Chhatisgarh: Raipur, Bilaspur
Odisha: Bhubaneswar, Rourkela
Bihar: Muzaffarpur, Bhagalpur, Bihar Shariff
All the 100 cities being nominated as smart city will now be required to prepare "Smart City Plans" for each of them. These Plans will be evaluated in the second stage of City Challenge competition by an Apex Body in the UD Ministry.
As per the criteria adopted, UP got the maximum of 13 smart city slots. To ensure geographical equity, every state/UT was assigned a minimum of one slot each.
"We have received 98 nominations for Smart City mission in time after detailed evaluation of all urban local bodies in each state and UT is a remarkable achievement. This is against the past trend of lethargy and casual approach. This reflects the new sense of urgency on the part of states and UTs to make a difference to our urban landscape," Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu told PTI.
These cities will be developed into smart cities under the NDA government's flagship urban projects while many other Indian cities have been selected under mega Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) plan.
The government has proposed to spend around Rs 1 lakh crore on the two schemes over the next five years. While Rs 48,000 crore has been earmarked for 100 smart cities, Rs 50,000 crore are marked for the AMRUT scheme for 500 cities.
The broad criteria of evaluation in the second stage of competition include credibility of smart city plans, action plan for resource mobilisation, economic impact including the number of people to be benefitted and employment generation, environmental impact.
Naidu complimented the concerned officials in his Ministry for their regular coordination and follow up with states and UTs to ensure that the nominations are received by the indicated time.
Naidu further said,"We will complete scrutinisation of the proposals this month-end to select the first batch of Smart City."
He said that selection of smart cities and further sequencing of financing is being done based on an objective criteria so that only those who can really deliver are picked up given the technical, financial and policy challenges involved in making 100 cities smart.
