Upset over non-inclusion of Patna and other cities in the first list of the winners to be developed as Smart city, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday found fault with the selection criteria under the Smart City Mission.
While seeking inclusion of Patna in the list, Kumar in a meeting with Union Minister of Urban Development Venkaiah Naidu said that while selecting cities under this mission, parameters like regional imbalance, existing gaps in institutional capabilities and variation in current level of development need to be factored in.
Stating that Patna could not be shortlisted from the State for inclusion in Smart City Mission, Kumar suggested that all such State capitals should be given an opportunity to compete for selection under Smart City Mission.
While suggesting Kumar to focus on improving urban governance in the State, Naidu said that inclusion of cities from each State in Smart City Mission was based on the evaluation of all claimant cities by respective state governments and the selection of first batch of 20 cities was based on a competition among 97 cities as per criteria evolved in consultation with States.
He also said that a special fast track competition is being conducted for one top ranked city from each of the 23 states that could not make it to the first list of winners in which Bhagalpur, ranked 65 could participate. Of the three cities from Bihar included in the Smart City Mission, Bihar Shariff was ranked 91 and Muzaffarpur-94.