On Friday, 30 urban cities were selected to be developed as smart cities of India. The third batch of smart city list announced by Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu also includes– Gandhinagar, the capital of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat, Karnal in Haryana, Allahabad, Aligarh and Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar’s capital Patna.
This brings the number of cities selected under the National Democratic Alliance government’s flagship urban modernisation programme to 90, leaving 10 slots remaining in the Smart City Mission. The proposed investment in these 30 cities is Rs 57,393 crore.
The ruling government launched a plan to develop 100 smart cities in June 2015 by providing uninterrupted power and water supplies, internet connectivity, e-governance along with quality infrastructure.
In the third list, 15 of the 30 cities are in the BJP ruled state. Three cities from Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, two from Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, one each from Haryana, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh have been selected. Patna and Muzaffarpur, Karnataka’s capital Bengaluru, Himachal Pradesh’s capital Shimla and Mizoram’s capital Aizawl and Puducherry are the four cities from Congress-ruled states that made the cut. Jammu and Srinagar have also been chosen.
However, many cities which have been included in the list lack even the most basic amenity such as clean water, proper sanitation, drainage facility, literacy level. For example, there is a lack of availability of tap water in Muzaffarpur.
