22 cities under the Smart City Mission to be ready by next month: Officials
1 min read 12 Feb 2023, 09:23 PM ISTThe government has utilized ₹32,095 crore out of the allocated funding of ₹36,447 crore under the mission, which constitutes around 88%
PremiumWith a promise of a better quality of life and a clean, sustainable environment, 22 cities including Agra, Varanasi, Chennai, Pune, and Ahmedabad will complete all projects under the government's flagship Smart City Mission by next month.
While providing more details, a senior official from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs said that projects in the remaining 78 cities selected under the mission will be completed in the next three to four months.
The 22 cities which will be completed by March include Bhopal, Indore, Agra, Varanasi, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Coimbatore, Erode, Ranchi, Salem, Surat, Udaipur, Visakhapatnam, Ahmedabad, Kakinada, Pune, Vellore, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Madurai, Amaravati, Tiruchirappalli, and Thanjavur.
"We will complete 22 smart cities by March as projects in these cities are in the final stages. In the next three-four months, we will be completing the project works of the remaining cities," the official told the news agency PTI.
Smart City Mission which is a flagship project of the Narendra Modi government was launched on 25 June 2015. The government zeroed upon 100 cities that were selected for redevelopment through four rounds of competition from January 2016 to June 2018. The mission aims to promote cities that provide core infrastructure and decent quality of life to their residents. The residents will also get a clean and sustainable environment with "smart solutions" for various issues under the scheme.
The implementation of the Smart City Mission is conducted by Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) which plan, implement, operate, monitor, and evaluate the projects under the scheme.
Union Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Kaushal Kishore told Rajya Sabha on 6 February that as of 27 January 2023, 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.
The officials from the ministry added that currently, there is no proposal to add more cities to the project.
The government has utilized ₹32,095 crore out of the allocated funding of ₹36,447 crore under the mission, which constitutes around 88%. The mission guidelines provide that the Union Government will financially support the scheme with ₹48,000 crore for five years and the State Governments will also contribute the matching amount.
(With inputs from PTI)
