New Delhi

Six cities from Gujarat

1. Gandhinagar

2. Ahmedabad

3. Surat

4. Vadodara

5. Rajkot

6. Dahod

There are about 12 crore people in the country who will be the direct beneficiaries of the Smart City project.

The total population of these proposed 98 Smart Cities is about 12 crore accounting for 35 per cent of country’s total urban population as per the 2011 census, Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said while releasing the list.

As per the profile of the selected cities, 35 cities and towns have a population between one and five lakh. There are 21 cities with population ranging between five and 10 lakh.

25 cities have population of above 10 lakh and below 25 lakh. A set of 5 cities are in the population range of 25 to 50 lakhs.

Four cities – Chennai, Greater Hyderabad, Greater Mumbai and Ahmedabad have population of about above 50 lakh each.

Out of 98 cities, 24 are capital cities, another 24 are business and industrial centres, 18 are of cultural and tourism importance, 5 are port cities, and 3 being education and health care hubs.

The cities which have have population of one lakh and below but figure in the list are Silvassa, Diu, Kavaratti, Pasighat in Arunachal and Namchi in Sikkim.

Nine capital cities that could not be nominated for Smart City development are Patna, Itanagar, Shimla, Banglaore, Daman, Thiruvanathapuram, Puducherry, Gangtok and Kohima

New Town near Kolkata in Bengal, Panaji in Goa and Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh are among 8 cities which are in the Smart City list.

Bidhannagar, Durgapur, Haldia are other three cities to be developed as Smart City in Bengal.

Chennai, Erode, Salem, Coimbatore, Madurai and Vellore are among 12 cities from Tamil Nadu that find place in the list.

While Dehradun from Uttarakhand and Agartala from Tripura have been selected, Greater Hyderabad and Greater Warangal are from Telangana.

Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Amritsar have found place in the list from Punjab while Bhubaneswar and Rourkela from Odisha bagged the slots.

From Rajasthan besides Ajmer, pink city Jaipur alongwith Udaipur and Kota find place in the list.

Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad, Surat and Rajkot are among six cities from Gujarat that got the nod.

Ranchi and Dharamshala will represent Jharkhand and Himachal respectively in the list.

Karnal and Faridabad from Haryana and Kochi from Kerala are in the coveted list released by the centre.

Biharsharif, Bhagalpur and Muzafarpur from Bihar while Vishakhapatnam, Tirupati and Kakinada from Andhra have also found place in the list.

Centre releases list of 98 cities for Smart City project

New Delhi

The Centre today announced the names of 98 cities selected for the Modi government’s flagship Smart Cities project but Mumbai, Bengaluru and Patna don’t figure in the list.

The names of the cities selected for the Rs 48,000 crore Smart Cities project was released by the Centre pending a nomination each from Uttar Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.

Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched the ambitious project with announcement of criteria and guidelines for 100 Smart Cities to be selected through city challenge competition in June 25.

While Jammu and Kashmir has to nominate one city, UP has got slots for 13 cities to be proposed as Smart City based on the urban population and number of notified cities.

“The Government of Jammu and Kashmir sought more time to firm up their choice. More information is sought from the Uttar Pradesh government about the 13th smart city that is yet to be announced,” Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said here after releasing the list here.

According to UD Ministry sources, Jammu and Kashmir wants both Jammu and Srinagar to be developed as Smart City though the state has got only one slot in the project.

Both Meerut and Rae Bareli has got equal points for the 13th slot in the city challenge competition in UP so now the state has to decide whom it wants to nominate, sources added.

Asked when the names of the remaining two cities will be decided, Naidu said it will be decided in due course.

Lucknow, Varanasi, Agra, Bareilly, Aligarh, Jhansi, Sharanpur are among 12 cities selected in UP for the Smart City project.

However, Patna and Bangaluru and Mumbai are not in the list.

“It is the states which has sent the names of the cities to be included in the project. Names of Patna and Bangalore were not proposed by their respective states. As far as Mumbai is concerned, Maharashtra has proposed Navi (rpt) Navi Mumbai for that purpose,” Naidu said.

While UP has maximum of 13 cities, followed by 12 by Tamil Nadu and 10 by Maharashtra to be developed as Smart Cities, Madhya Pradesh has seven cities in the project.

Karnataka and Gujarat have six cities each while Bihar and Andhra has three each and rest of the states have two and one cities respectively in the project. more PTI ARU

All Union Territories, including Delhi, have found place in the list.

Moradabad, Solapur, Amritsar, Rourkela, Durgapur and Ajmer also figure in the list of 98 cities.

The next stage is the choosing 20 cities in the first lot by end of the year and the next two years 40 cities each will be selected for receiving Central funding of Rs 500 crore spread over the coming five years.

Naidu said “The first stage of competition was entirely conducted by the States and UTs only with little role for the Union Urban Development Ministry.”

Centre will release Rs 2 crore for each of the 98 cities in the next couple of days for preparation of Smart City plans.

Our ministry has drawn up region wise panels of reputed agencies for assisting the cities to prepare Smart City plans, he said.

For the selection of 20 cities, the broad criteria will be city vision and strategy, cost effectiveness, credibility of implementation and innovation.

Naidu said those cities which are not selected in the first round can again participate in the second and third round by improving their performances.

Even states can nominate new names after elimination of some cities in the final round of selection, he said.