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The Centre on Thursday released the list of 98 cities that will now compete for the second stage of the smart cities challenge to secure funding from the Centre. Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have bagged the lion’s share with 12 cities each, followed by Maharashtra with 10.
Click here to view the list of cities shortlisted for stage-2 of Smart Cities Mission
Of the 98, 24 are capital cities, 24 business and industrial centres, 18 of cultural and tourism importance, five port cities, and three are education and healthcare hubs, Minister for Urban Development M Venkaiah Naidu said at a press conference here. “Capital cities Itanagar, Patna, Shimla, Bengaluru, Daman, Thiruvananthapuram, Puducherry, Gangtok, and Kolkata could not be nominated,” Naidu added.
The Centre had allotted each State a specific number of city slots. These 98 aspirants have been chosen by States/Union Territories through an intra-State competition based on existing service levels, financial and institutional capacities and past track record and reforms.
Among the 98 cities, 90 have also already been selected for another flagship scheme — Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation.
To release funds
In the next few days, the government will release ₹2 crore for each of these 98 cities for preparation of smart city proposals to compete in the second stage.
“Proposals will be judged by the Centre on credibility of implementation, city vision and strategy, economic and environmental impacts, cost effectiveness, innovation and scalability and processes followed, including citizen implementation,” Naidu said.
Top 20 scoring cities in the first round of the second stage will be chosen by December and ₹200 crore per city will be provided by Centre in the first year, followed by ₹100 crore each year for the next three years. “The remaining cities will be asked to address deficiencies before participating in second and third rounds of the challenge,” the Minister said.
The Centre had in April approved an outlay of ₹48,000 crore for the mission.
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