53rd in nation, Ludhiana best smart city in making in state

Tribune News Service

Nitin Jain

Ludhiana, January 8

Ludhiana is emerging as the best smart city in the state by ranking first in the state and 53rd among 100 cities being developed as smart in the country, the government has confirmed.

24L vehicles, on 4K-km roads

With a road and lane network spreading over 4,000 km, Ludhiana has over 24 lakh registered vehicles and the vehicular population was fast exploding with a whopping 79,000 new vehicles registered here in 2023 at an average of over 219 new vehicles daily and 6,576 vehicles hitting the road every month.

The latest rankings were released by the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) recently, the Municipal Corporation Commissioner, Sandeep Rishi, has shared this during the review of Smart City Mission (SCM) projects here on Monday.

Rajya Sabha MP from Ludhiana Sanjeev Arora reviewed the projects and directed the MC Commissioner to ensure completion of the ongoing works at the earliest, as per laid down specifications.

He said 52 projects worth Rs 219 crore had already been completed, 16 schemes worth Rs 549.1 crore were under execution and four deposit works had been tendered at the cost of Rs 161.9 crore.

Rishi apprised the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) member in the Upper House of Parliament from Punjab of the total allocated funds of Rs 889.25 crore, comprising Rs 441-crore Centre’s share and Rs 448.25-crore state share had already been received, of which Rs 778.25 crore had been utilised, which account for 87.59 per cent of the total funding so far.

This time’s ranking was better for Ludhiana than 2020 when it was ranked at 54th spot in the country. Since then, Ludhiana’s ranking has been constantly improving. From 54th rank in 2020, Ludhiana had ranked 37th in 2021, 48th in 2022, 32nd in January last year, 48th in October 2023, and 53rd in January 2024.

However, the latest ranking was five spots down than the previous one and 21 positions below the January 2023 rank but a jump of 1 spot in the past four years.

But despite the national rankings going down, Ludhiana continues to remain the best among three smart cities in Punjab since 2023.

In 2022, Ludhiana was adjudged second best in Punjab with Jalandhar bagging the top spot.

This time, Jalandhar has slipped to third rank in the state with 82nd rank in the country while Amritsar has ranked 80th in the country and has stood second in the state.

The rankings were decided on the basis of various parameters, mainly depending on the progress of the works under the SCM, by taking into consideration details of projects completed, in progress, under tendering and still under planning, besides analysing the expenditure aspect as well.

Ludhiana, popularly known as Manchester of India, spread over 159 sq km area with a population of 17 lakh as per the 2011 Census, was among 100 cities in the country and three in the state, which was selected under the SCM to be developed as a smart city in the first round of the selection by the MoHUA in 2015.

Moving fast to become smart, says MP

“Ludhiana, which is the industrial and business hub of the North, having a large migrant population, is fast moving towards becoming a smart city as envisaged under the SCM of the Union Government and equal funding by the state government,” said Sanjeev Arora, Rajya Sabha MP.

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