New Delhi: The Ministry of Urban Development today announced 13 winners of the 'fast track competition’ under the smart cities mission.
The selected cities are: Lucknow, Warangal, Dharmashala, Chandigarh, Raipur, New Town Kolkata, Bhagalpur, Panaji, Port Blair, Imphal, Ranchi, Agartala and Faridabad.
"As many as 9 out of these 13 cities scored 25 per cent more over their smart city proposal submitted previously," Venkaiah Naidu, Union Urban Development Minister, said.
Lucknow emerged on top in the contest.
The first list of 20 smart cities out of 97 that will be funded and developed by the Centre was declared on January 28.
The cities that made it to the list were Bhubaneswar, Pune, Jaipur, Surat, Kochi, Ahmedabad, Jabalpur, Visakhapatnam, Solapur, Davangere, Indore, New Delhi, Coimbatore, Kakinada, Belgaum, Udaipur, Guwahati, Chennai, Ludhiana and Bhopal.
The selected cities will be developed to have basic infrastructure, including water and power supply, sanitation management, efficient public transport, e-governance and IT connectivity.
These 13 cities were selected based on the marks scored by them in the Fast Track competition and the bench marks set by the top performers in the first round of Smart City Challenge competition in which the first 20 cities were selected from among 98 mission cities.
Naidu stated that the 13 cities have substantially improved their smart city plans by addressing the deficiencies identified in the first round of competition by ensuring better profiling of respective cities in terms of infrastructure gaps and baseline service levels, ensuring consistency between citizens' aspirations and action plans, more feasible resource mobilization plans and coordinated and integrated picture of how individual projects will contribute to area level changes.
Giving an account of the gains of new initiatives and approaches, Naidu said that for the first time in the country, 98 smart cities and 497 Atal Mission cities accounting for over 70% of urban population now have long term five year action plans based on comprehensive analysis of infrastructure gaps.
The government has increased Central assistance for improving basic infrastructure in urban areas to Rs 1, 13,143 crores under new urban missions as against only Rs 33, 902 crores during 2004-14, he informed.
For affordable housing for urban poor, Central assistance of Rs .10, 050 crores has already been approved as against only Rs 17, 889 crores during the previous ten years.
