Comments
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency Varanasi has finally bagged the coveted smart city tag in the second round of the government’s flagship scheme.
The holy city ranked 23rd among the 27 cities announced under the second round of the smart cities mission by the Ministry of Urban Development on Tuesday. Amritsar has secured top rank among these cities.
“The 27 cities selected in this round have proposed a total investment of ₹66,883 crore, 79 per cent of which is planned in area based development and rest 21 per cent in pan-city solutions,” Union Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said here. Maharashtra with five cities, and Tamil Nadu and Karnataka with four cities each, have bagged the lion's share in this list. Interestingly, Uttar Pradesh, which will witness elections next year, has three cities namely Agra, Kanpur and Varanasi in this round while Amritsar and Jalandhar from poll-bound Punjab have also been selected.
In January this year, 20 winning cities which were announced under the first round covered only 12 States and Union Territories. The government had then decided to conduct a special ‘fast-track competition’ to offer an opportunity to the highest ranked city in each of the unrepresented 23 States and UTs.
In May this year, the Ministry of Urban Development had announced 13 more winners of the smart city tag under the fast-track round. With the announcement of 27 cities under the second round on Tuesday, as many as 60 cities have bagged the smart city tag till date.
The selection process of remaining 40 cities under the ‘100 smart cities’ mission will commence in January 2017, he added.
On the progress of the cities selected in the first round, Naidu said, “As many as 82 projects are already under implementation.” Moreover, 113 projects will soon take off, he added.
Many lending agencies such as ADB, World Bank, JICA, New Development Bank (BRICS Bank), DFID of the UK, etc have expressed willingness to finance projects under the mission, Naidu told reporters here.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.