City Beautiful set to get smart too

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 27

Putting an end to the race among cities to make it to the list of 100 smart cities, the Urban Development Ministry today announced the names of 98 cities, including the City Beautiful, which have been selected for the flagship Smart City Mission of the NDA government.

The selection was made through an intra-city competition which evaluated various cities on parameters such as service level, financial and institutional capacity, past track record and reforms.

UT Adviser Vijay Kumar Dev said it was a great achievement for the City Beautiful as it had come a step closer to becoming a smart city by passing stage one of the Smart City Mission. For the second stage of the competition, the Administration had pulled up its socks and was all set to prepare a smart city proposal in consultation with city residents and other stakeholders for participation in the ‘City Challenge’, he said.

Now, cities to compete to make it to top 20

Now, 100 potential smart cities will prepare smart city plans, which will be evaluated in stage two of the competition for prioritising cities for receiving Central funding. In the first round of this stage, 20 top scorers will be chosen for funding during this financial year.

The remaining cities will be asked to remove the deficiencies identified by the apex committee of the Ministry of Urban Development for participation in the next two rounds of the competition.

Chandigarh had scored 82.5 marks out of 100

Chandigarh had scored 82.5 marks out of 100 in parameters used to select cities for the Smart City Mission. The mission intends to promote adoption of smart solutions for the efficient use of available assets, resources and infrastructure. The Centre has earmarked Rs 48,000 crore for the development of 100 smart cities. In the first phase, the Centre will pick 20 cities and in the next two years, 40 cities each will be selected for receiving Central funding of Rs 500 crore spread over the next five years. Each smart city will get a Central assistance of Rs 100 crore per year for five years.