The Government on Friday said a city challenge initiative will be rolled out in the next few weeks allowing urban areas across India to compete for the Smart City tag.The competition would assess the proven ability of cities in terms of reforms and innovation to select the most willing and able cities and towns for making them smart, said Union Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu.

laying bare the challenges and issues needed for better urban life, Naidu asked the States if the urban governance mechanisms in their cities and towns were ready for reform for the smart city tag. He was speaking at the two-day final consultative workshop on Smart City with States and stakeholders being held in the capital.

“Building smart cities is challenging but doable. Building smart cities is all about 4 S and 4 P. Smart leadership, Smart Governance, Smart Technologies and Smart People make a city smart,” he asserted adding  “the resource challenge can be met if we make a success of Public-Private-People Partnership”. The Central Government will give a shape to its Smart Cities programme after a two-day meeting of secretaries of the State Governments and Union Territories on this issue. The Government has plans to develop 100 cities as smart cities.

“A final shape to the smart cities concept would be given at the meeting. Each State will have three smart cities, excluding the State capital,” said Naidu adding that countries like the US, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Sweden and Germany have showed interest in building smart cities in India. Naidu said the Prime Minister wanted the States to be taken on board for the Smart City project.

“He said we must work as Team India. So... that is why I have made a plain talk about what are the challenges, problems and what are the opportunities available,” the Minister said. Referring to four guiding principles of Smart Cities, Naidu said there should be a vision and mission, courage to take tough and quick decisions, to learn best practices and to attract investment.  

Defining the idea of Smart City, Naidu said it should enable better urban living by addressing present problems like urban mobility, assured supply of quality utilities like water and electricity, good sanitation, solid waste management and affordable social infrastructure like health care and education and responsive governance.