Government Asks States to Start Smart City Projects by June 25

Narendra Modi-led alliance government seems to be serious about implementing the smart city project  as soon as possible and hence instructed states to launch the first batch of the proposed projects by June 25. Importantly it will mark the first anniversary of the launch of mission by the PM last year. Government has selected 20 cities across the country in the first round through a stiff competition.

While addressing a workshop on “India Smart City Mission: Next Step,” Minister of Urban Development  M. Venkaiah Naidu said: “Smart City Competition was completely city neutral neither favouring nor discriminating against any participant city.” Elaborating on this, he added that the evaluating criteria including implementation framework, result orientation, citizen participation, smartness of solutions, city vision and strategy, processes followed etc. do not favour or go against any city.

With widespread criticism about selection criteria, government is in no mood to nudge and clearing the air with its own logic. “Lesser known Davanagere in Karnataka and Solpaur in Maharashtra scored higher than the well known New Delhi Municipal Council. Little known Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh did much better than the mighty Chennai in terms of ranks,” Naidu marked. “I see no reason why Bhagalpur in Bihar, Ranchi in Jharkhand and Dehradun in Uttarakhand could not do what Belagavi in Karnataka did in coming out with a sound vision and a credible strategy to realise it and making it to the top 20,”he added. 

About political intervention in selecting cities, Naidu noted that several political leaders met me and said that the competition based selection of cities based on a set of rules is all fine but it brought pressure on them with people asking why not a single city from their states made it to the top 20? “If competition could make political leadership at various levels focus on urban planning and governance, it is a positive outcome since urban governance can no longer be business as usual,’’ he added. 

In the workshop 23 cities like Warangal, Chandigarh, Lucknow are taking part and learning how to improve their proposals. In this cities that are already being selected are also giving their presentation. Senior officials from States and Union Territories and Municipal Commissioners of the 20 top ranked cities and 23 cities participating in the Fast Track Competition attended the day long workshop to discuss the way forward.