India's first 20 Smart Cities announced; Bhubaneswar tops the list, Mumbai misses out

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: The Centre on Thursday announced the names of first 20 cities that are to be developed into Smart Cities of India with a proposed investment of Rs 50,802 crore during the next five years.

Bhubaneswar emerged on top among 20 cities, including Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Bhopal, that have been selected as part of the first batch of the Smart City initiative. However, Mumbai failed to make it to the list.

The NDMC area of the Delhi Union Territory also made it to the grade with other cities like Pune, Jaipur, Surat, Kochi, Ahmedabad, Jabalpur, Visakhapatnam, Solapur, Davanagere, Indore, Coimbatore, Kakinada, Belagavi, Udaipur, Guwahati, Chennai, Ludhiana and Bhopal completing the list.

Overall, 97 cities from across the country were put up for the Smart City Challenge competition.

Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu announced the first list of 20 cities today that 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.

"Nobody can stop an idea whose time has come and this applies to the Smart City (initiative as well)," Naidu said while announcing the list of cities that were selected through the 'Smart City Challenge Competition'.

Releasing the list of 20 top winners of the Smart Cities competition, Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said a total investment of Rs 50,802 crore has been proposed for the selected Smart Cities and towns during the five year period.

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.

In the subsequent years, the government will announce 40 cities each to be developed as Smart Cities as per Prime Minister Narendra Modi's plan to develop 100 Smart Cities in the country.

The cities in the first list have made it to the top of the competition based on implementation framework, including feasibility and cost-effectiveness, which had a weightage of 30 percent, followed by result orientation (20 percent), citizen participation (16 percent), smartness of proposal (10 percent), strategic plan (10 percent), vision and goals (5 percent), evidence-based city profiling and key performance indicators (5 percent) and processes followed (4 percent).

Congratulating the winners of the competition, 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, 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.

With PTI Inputs