The Centre’s Smart Cities Mission will be completed in 22 cities by March, giving people a better quality of life and a clean and sustainable environment, news agency PTI reported citing officials on Sunday.
Agra, Varanasi and Chennai are among the cities which will mark the completion of the projects under the ambitious mission by next month. The remaining 78 cities under the mission will be redeveloped in the next three-four months, a senior official of the Union housing and urban affairs ministry said.
List of cities which will be renovated under the mission by March:
Bhopal, Indore, Agra, Varanasi, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Coimbatore, Erode, Ranchi, Salem, Surat, Udaipur, Visakhapatnam, Ahmedabad, Kakinada, Pune, Vellore, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Madurai, Amaravati, Tiruchirappalli and Thanjavur.
Smart Cities Mission – a flagship mission of the Narendra Modi government – was launched on June 25, 2015, and 100 cities were selected for redevelopment through four rounds of competition held between 2016 and 2018. The mission’s objective is to promote cities that provide core infrastructure and give its citizens a decent quality of life and a clean and sustainable environment, besides adopting “smart solutions” to various issues, the government said.
On February 6, Union minister of state for housing and urban affairs Kaushal Kishore told Rajya Sabha that as on January 27 this year, out of 7,804 projects worth ₹1,81,322 crore for which work orders have been issued in the 100 smart cities, 5,246 projects worth ₹98,796 crore have been completed.
According to the mission guidelines, the central government will provide financial support to the extent of ₹48,000 crore over five years, on an average ₹100 crore per city per year. An equal amount on a matching basis will be contributed by the state government or urban local body.
(With PTI inputs)
