The Central government on Friday announced another list of 30 places for development as smart cities, taking the total cities picked up so far to 90 under the Smart City Mission launched on June 25, 2015.
Thiruvananthapuram has topped the list of new smart city list. Other cities that figured in the latest list include Trivendrum, Naya Raipur, Rajkit, 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.
“A total of 45 cities contested for 40 available smart city slots but only 30 were selected to ensure feasible and workable plans,” Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu said while announcing the list.
“Of the 30 cities announced today, 26 of them have proposed affordable housing projects that benefit the urban poor, 26 cities will be taking up school and hospital projects, 29 will be taking up redesign and redevelopment of roads,” he added.
Naidu said that the 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 utilisation of infrastructure.
With this the total investment approved under the smart city plans of 90 cities has gone up to Rs. 1,91,155 crore.
The minister said that 20 cities will be contesting for the remaining 10 slots under smart city mission. These cities include Itanagar (Arunachal Pradesh), Biharsharif (Bihar), Diu (Daman & Diu), Silvassa (Dadra and Nager Haveli), Kavaratti (Lakshadweep), Navi Mumbai, 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).
(With inputs from agencies)