Government announces names of 30 more smart cities; Thiruvanathapuram tops list

New Delhi: The government on Friday announced names of 30 more cites to be developed as smart cities taking the total cities picked up so far to 90 under Smart City Mission launched on June 25, 2015.

Thiruvananthapuram has topped the list of new smart city list. Names of smart cities announced today are: Trivendrum, Naya Raipur, Rajkot, Amaravati, Patna, Karimnagar, Muzaffarpur, Puducherry, Gandhinagar, Srinagar, Sagar, Karnal, Satna, Bengaluru, Shimla, Dehradun, Tiruppur, Pimpri chinchwad, Bilaspur, Pasighat, Jammu, Dahod, Tirunelveli, Thootukkudi, Tiruchirapalli, Jhansi, Aizawl, Allahabad, Aligarh, Gangtok.

Announcing the new batch of smart cities at a National Workshop on Urban Transformation in the national capital, Minister of Urban Development and Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation M.Venkaiah Naidu said that 45 cities contested for 40 available smart city slots but only 30 were selected.

30 cities announced today proposed a total investment of Rs 57,393 crore under respective smart city plans.

This includes Rs 46,879 crore for ensuring core infrastructure in the areas identified by citizens for area based development and Rs 10,514 crore for technology based solutions for improving governance, service delivery and utilization of infrastructure.

With this the total investment approved under the smart city plans of 90 cities has gone up to Rs1,91,155 crore.

Naidu siad that 20 cities will be contesting for the remaining 10 slots under smart city mission. These are; Itanagar (Arunachal Pradesh), Biharsharif (Bihar), Diu (Daman & Diu), Silvassa (Dadra and Nager Haveli), Kavaratti (Lakshadweep), Navimumbai, Greater Mumbai and Amaravati (Maharashtra), Imphal (Manipur), Shillong (Meghalaya), Dindigul and Erode(Tamil Nadu), Bidhannagar, Durgapur and Haldia (West Bengal), Meerut,Rai  Bareilly, Ghaziabad, Sharanpur and Rampur (UP).