The Dehradun smart city proposal submitted by the State authorities failed yet again to secure a place in the latest list of 27 cities announced by the Union Government under the Smart City programme on Tuesday.
Officials state that factors like the June 2013 disaster may have weakened the chances of the proposal to secure Central approval. The State authorities will now make all efforts to strengthen the proposal in order to secure a place in the next smart city list slated to be released in January next year.
The list of 27 smart city proposals announced by Minister of Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Tuesday did not include Dehradun. State officials claim that they had done their part well and the improved proposal for Dehradun smart city submitted this time had to score only two points for the State which would have led to Dehradun smart city proposal's inclusion in the latest list. On the other hand, Naidu stated that the 2013 disaster and floods experienced in Uttarakhand had influenced the decision evidenced in selection of the latest list of proposals.
The Mussoorie Dehradun Development Authority (MDDA) vice-chairman and State nodal officer for smart city programme, R Meenakshi Sundaram stated that they had worked hard to secure a place for Dehradun smart city proposal in the list of approved proposals. The grounds stated by the Centre for non-inclusion of Dehradun will be studied and necessary measures will be taken to bring about the desired improvements in the proposal and its chances of being approved.
The Dehradun Mayor, Vinod Chamoli said that though the municipal corporation board had done its bit to boost State efforts for approval of the smart city proposal, the apathy of the State administration appears to have resulted in the proposal submitted to the Centre being rejected for the third time in a row.
Some observers and politicians are blaming political motives, Central bias against the State and other ulterior factors as being responsible for the rejection of the proposal. Sources point out that considering specific aspects in the proposal compared with the ground reality, it appears as if the proposal was drafted in a manner which was less likely to be approved especially in view of the seismic vulnerability and other region-specific factors.