 "PM to flag off 69 Smart City projects worth Rs 1,770 crore")
Exactly a year after launching the '100 Smart Cities' project, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is headed for another inauguration. On Saturday, he will formally flag off the implementation of plans for the first 20 selected through the 'smart city challenge' competition earlier this year, says the urban development ministry.
The venue will be Pune, where the PM will address a gathering at the Shiv Chatrapati Sports Complex, which seats 5,000 people.
Other cities in the first 20 list -- including Bhubaneswar, Surat, Visakhapatnam, Bhopal, Indore, Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Ludhiana -- will be hooked through video conferencing at the launch. A total of 69 projects with an estimated investment of Rs 1,770 crore will be launched the same day, across the cities.
These projects would deal with anything from pedestrian walkways to buses with alternative fuels, solid waste management to riverfront gardens, a common mobility card to urban knowledge centres. Contests and portals to share ideas on smart cities will also be announced.
Last April, the Union Cabinet had cleared Rs 50,000 crore as central assistance for 100 smart cities. Each city can get Rs 100 crore of central funding annually for five years; the rest has to be financed by states, local bodies and private parties.
The PM, while launching three projects last year (Smart Cities Mission, Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation and Housing for All Mission in Urban Areas), had said for the first time in the country, people and the urban leadership would play a critical role in deciding the future of their cities. ''So far, cities grew based on investment choices made by builders,'' he'd said.
The 20 selected cities have come from 11 states, with Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Madhya Pradesh getting three (Bhopal, Indore and Jabalpur) in the first list. Those with two cities each are Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra (all BJP-ruled) and Andhra Pradesh (led by BJP ally Telugu Desam).
AIADMK-ruled Tamil Nadu and Congress-ruled Karnataka have also made it to the list with two cities each. Punjab, Assam, Kerala and the 43 sq km New Delhi Municipal Council portion in Delhi are the other winners.
Funding is seen as the most important. The Centre's funds have to be matched by money from states and municipalities.