Kakinada and Vizag to become smart cities from AP

Union urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu  on Thursday released the first list of names of 20 cities to be developed into smart cities under Smart Cities Mission. The cities include Bhubaneswar, Pune, Jaipur, Surat, Kochi, Ahmedabad, Jabalpur, Visakhapatnam, Solapur, Davangere, Indore, the New Delhi area, Coimbatore, Kakinada, Belgaum, Udaipur, Guwahati, Chennai, Ludhiana and Bhopal. The central government will provide Rs.200 crore in the first year to each selected city and Rs.100 crore each every subsequent year. Plans will be implemented by a special purpose vehicle (SPV) set up for each city.According to union Urban Development ministry, Bhubaneswar scored highest among the cities chosen in a competition among the states.

All states were asked to submit their choices, which were judged on levels of service, infrastructure and track record with a theme. 97 selected cities had submitted their plans to the ministry and were given Rs.2 crore each to prepare city-level smart city plans with the assistance of technical agencies and other organizations. The central questionnaire consisted 43 questions.

Though there were 100 cities in the mission, Telangana has reportedly sought time to replace Hyderabad with another city and the states of Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh are yet to select one city each.

Warangal is said to have missed the bus with one point, while Andhra Pradesh succeeded in pushing two cities, Vizag and Kakinada in to the list.

The selected cities, , according to the ministry, have been evaluated on the basis of six criteria, including credibility of implementation, city vision and strategy, and economic and environmental impacts of the plan. In the next two years, 40 cities will be selected each year.

Reacting on the list Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao expressed displeasure over the absence of any name from Telangana state. ” This is injustice to the state of Telangana. Union urban development minister Venkaiah Naidu owes an explanation on  this to the people of Telangana,” he said.