Bhubaneswar, Pune Among 20 Chosen in 1st Batch of Smart Cities

The 20 winning cities and towns have proposed a total investment of Rs. 50,802 crore over five years, with all the cities proposing public-private-partnership as a major vehicle of resource mobilization.

Bhubaneswar: The Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik tweeted and congratulated the citizens and the team for securing first position amongst the list of twenty cities declared by the Centre under its “Smart Cities Mission” project on Thursday.

The cities which failed to make it to the list today, would get another chance and have been directed to start preparations for the round 2.

He also announced a fast track round of competition to give one more opportunity to the top ranking cities in each of the states who have missed the bus, to upgrade their smart city proposals and submit them till 15 April 2016.

Last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream “Smart Cities” project threw up a range of vision statements with majority aiming to be clean, green and economic growth drivers.

Union parliamentary affairs minister Venkaiah Naidu said, “We introduced competition to pick the best candidates”.

“Implementation of smart cities plan will showcase integrated planning”.

This is result of efforts of all citizen of Udaipur as citizen participation was mandatory for preparation of Smart City plan and a weightage of 16% was given towards the same.

NEW DELHI (AP) – India took a step toward modernizing its cities on Thursday by awarding 20 with funds to solve problems from shoddy sewage treatment to snarled traffic.

Here’s a list of first batch of cities that will be developed as smart cities.

Of the 98 cities and towns that five years down will graduate into smart cities, 24 are capital cities, another 24 are business and industrial centres, 18 are culture and tourism influenced areas, five are port cities and three are education and health care hubs.

He said the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (HUPA) had earlier this week approved a Rs 253 crore plan for enabling 10,000 houses of economically weaker sections in Tamil Nadu produce solar power through roof-mounted solar panels.

Naidu added: “Changes and challenges and desired outcomes are there”.