INDIA: In a recent update, the Narendra Modi-led central government’s initiative towards making 100 smart cities in India, some cities have already gone through a major transition. As per officials, this smart city vision will make citizens’ lives better and cleaner and is a step towards a sustainable environment.
“We will complete 22 smart cities by March as projects in these cities are in the final stages. “We will complete the project works in the remaining cities in the next three to four months,” officials said.
In 2015, the Narendra Modi government launched the flagship Smart Cities Mission, and 100 cities were selected for revamping in four rounds of competition from January 2016 to June 2018.
PM Narendra Modi allocates a huge budget of around Rs 7.2 lakh crore for visionary smart cities. Currently, the exact 22 cities that are ready to enter into the category of smart cities are Bhopal, Indore, Agra, Varanasi, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Coimbatore, Erode, Ranchi, Salem, Surat, Udaipur, Visakhapatnam, Ahmedabad, Kakinada, Pune, Vellore, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Madurai, Amaravati, Tiruchirappalli, and Thanjavur.
Meanwhile, the ruling government will provide monetary support of ₹48,000 crores for over five years, on average ₹100 crores per city every year. The state government or urban local body will contribute an equal amount on a matching basis.
On February 6, Kaushal Kishore, the Union Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs, told the upper house that, as of January 27, 2018, 5,246 projects worth Rs 98,796 crore had been completed out of 7,804 projects with a budget of Rs 1,81,322 crore in 100 smart cities.
The remaining cities will go through the development process. The cities that have been selected are Delhi, Dehradun, Ranchi, Chandigarh, and Srinagar.
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