Smart City mission adds 27 new cities

The Golden Temple city of Amritsar topped the list of 27 new smart cities announced by the minister of urban development M Venkaiah Naidu in New Delhi today. The 27 emerging smart cities have been selected from 63 cities after a three round competition.

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.

These 27 cities have proposed a total investment of Rs66,883 crore under respective smart city plans. This includes Rs42,524 crore in area based development and Rs11,379 crore in technology based solutions.

Spread over 12 states, the list includes five cities from Maharashtra, four each from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, three from Uttar Pradesh, two each from Punjab and Madhya Pradesh, and one each from Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Gujarat, Nagaland and Sikkim.

The other two cities from Uttar Pradesh are Agra and Kanpur.

Announcing the new smart cities Naidu said ''The willingness and enthusiasm among cities to participate in more than one round of competition is a clear evidence of the urban renaissance set in motion. Competition bases selection has made the cities rediscover themselves as they are undertaking a thorough assessment of gaps in the present levels of infrastructure and service delivery and come out with comprehensive, credible and actionable plans for area based development and technology based Pan-city solutions''

The minister said the new 27 smart cities have a proposed investment of Rs66,883 crore under smart city plans, including Rs.42,524 crore under area-based development and another Rs11,379 crore 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 Rs1,44,742 crore, he said.