Raipur city has improved the quality of 'smart city' plans by 25 per cent to finally find its place in the list of 13 cities chosen by the Central Government for development as a ‘smart city’.
Notably, in February this year the Central Government in its cleanliness survey had listed Raipur among the top 10 dirtiest cities in the country.
Uttar Pradesh capital lucknow topped the list of winners of the Fast Track competition conducted for 23 cities from as many States and Union Territories.
Union Minister of Urban Development and Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation M Venkaiah Naidu said in New Delhi on Tuesday that the cities that participated in the competition improved the quality of smart city plans by up to over 25% to become eligible for selection.
With the selection of these 13 cities, 25 States/UTs are now covered under Smart City Mission Other winners of Fast Track competition were ; Warangal, Telanagana (13%), Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh (27%), Chandigarh (9%), Raipur, Chattisgarh (25%), New Town Kolkata (11%), Bhagalpur, Bihar (25%), Panaji, Goa (9%), Port Blair, Andaman & Nicobar Islands (26%), Imphal, Manipur (27%), Ranchi, Jharkhand (27%), Agartala, Tripura (25%) and Faridabad, Haryana(12%).
These 13 cities were selected based on the marks scored by them in the Fast Track competition and the bench marks set by the top performers in the first round of Smart City Challenge competition in which the first 20 cities were selected from among 98 mission cities.
Naidu stated that the 13 cities have substantially improved their smart city plans by addressing the deficiencies identified in the first round of competition by ensuring better profiling of respective cities in terms of infrastructure gaps and baseline service levels, ensuring consistency between citizens’ aspirations and action plans, more feasible resource mobilization plans and coordinated and integrated picture of how individual projects will contribute to area level changes.
Seven capital cities left out of Smart City Mission will also be allowed to participate in the competition. These cities are : Patna, Shimla, Naya Raipur, Itanagar (Arunachal Pradesh), Amaravati (Andhra Pradesh), Bengaluru and Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala).
Giving an account of the gains of new initiatives and approaches, Naidu said that for the first time in the country, 98 smart cities and 497 Atal Mission cities accounting for over 70% of urban population now have long term five year action plans based on comprehensive analysis of infrastructure gaps. The Central assistance for improving basic infrastructure in urban areas has been increased to ` 1,13,143 cr under new urban missions as against only ` 33,902 cr during 2004-14. For affordable housing for urban poor, Central assistance of ` 10,050 cr has already been approved as against only ` 17,889 cr during the previous ten years.