Govt announced 27 more Smart cities in third round

The government has selected 27 new smart cities in the latest round of ‘Smart City Challenge’ competition.

Key facts:

• The 27 smart cities announced are from 12 States including 5 from Maharashtra, 4 each from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, 3 from Uttar Pradesh and 2 each from Punjab and Rajasthan. Nagaland and Sikkim have made it to the smart city list for the first time.
• Amritsar has topped the list. Eight other cities of pilgrim and tourism importance that made to the third list of smart cities are ; Ujjain, Tirupati, Agra, Nashik, Madurai, Thanjavur, Ajmer and Varanasi.
• With this the number of cities selected under Smart City Mission for financing implementation of smart city plans has gone up to 60.
• With this announcement, implementation of smart city plans is now spread over 27 States and UTs.
• 9 States/UTs still to enter implementation phase are; Uttarakhand, J & K, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Puducherry, Lakshadweep, Daman & Diu and Dadra, Nagar & Haveli.  

Funding:

• The new 27 smart cities have proposed an investment of Rs.66,883 cr under smart city plans including Rs.42,524 cr under Area Based Development.
• The cities have proposed another Rs.11,379 cr for technology based Pan-city solutions that benefits all the citizens of respective cities.
• With this, the total investment proposed by the 60 cities selected so far has gone up to Rs.1,44,742 cr.

Background:

The Smart Cities mission was launched in June 2015 with the government releasing the guidelines and mission statement for the 100 Smart Cities project.

• Under this programme, the government will provide central funding of Rs 50,802 crore to the selected cities for improving their infrastructure and service delivery through application of better technology and e-governance.
• States and Urban local Bodies (ULBs) will play a key supportive role in the development of Smart Cities. Smart leadership and vision at this level and ability to act decisively will be important factors determining the success of the Mission.

Funding:

According to mission guidelines, the total State and Central financial assistance for each smart city would be Rs. 1,000 crore. The central government will grant every winning city a sum of Rs. 500 crore as overall cache of start-up funds and the State governments will provide an additional Rs. 500 crore.