Poll-bound Lucknow tops second list of smart cities

Thirteen cities become eligible to get central funding

Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, a state that goes to polls next year, has topped the list of 13 winners in a fast-track competition for smart cities.

These 13 cities were selected in a competition among a total of 23. With this, 33 cities have become eligible for central funding for the project. In January, the first lot of 20 cities were announced. Besides Lucknow, the latest list of 13 includes Warangal (Telangana), Dharamsala (Himachal Pradesh), Chandigarh, Raipur (Chhattisgarh), New Town-Kolkata (West Bengal), Bhagalpur (Bihar), Panaji (Goa), Port Blair (Andaman & Nicobar), Imphal (Manipur), Ranchi (Jharkhand), Agartala (Tripura) and Faridabad (Haryana).

Five cities from the list were from states scheduled to see Assembly elections in two years. While Uttar Pradesh, Goa and Manipur will have elections in 2017, Himachal Pradesh and Tripura will go to polls in 2018. Chandigarh, a Union territory, is the capital of Punjab (and also Haryana), which will see elections in 2017.

Each of these cities will get Rs 500 crore in phases from the Centre under the smart city plan. The remaining funds have to come from the states, municipal bodies and the private sector. The Cabinet had last year allocated Rs 50,000 crore of central funding for the smart city project.

A government statement said: “These 13 cities were selected based on the marks scored by them in the fast-track competition and the benchmarks set by the top performers in the first round of the Smart City Challenge, in which the first 20 cities were selected from among 98 mission cities.”

In addition, the tie between Meerut and Rai Bareilly, the two cities in UP, will be decided soon for smart city funding. So will the clash between Jammu and Srinagar be settled, according to Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu. Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar — three states that had not found any presence in the January list — have been included now. Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency, continues to be missing from the smart city list.    

In January, Bhubaneshwar had emerged the top city on the list of 20. Others were Pune, Jaipur, Surat, Kochi, Ahmedabad, Jabalpur, Vishakapatnam, Solapur, Davangere, Indore, Coimbatore, Kakinada, Belgaum, Udaipur, Guwahati, Chennai, Ludhiana, Bhopal and the New Delhi Municipal Corporation.

Anshuman Magazine, chairman and MD of CBRE South Asia Pvt Ltd, said: “It is encouraging to note the participation of more Tier-II and -III cities, which means that the benefits of urban development and infrastructure creation will be evenly spread across the country.”

However, what is more important is what kind of models individual cities would adopt for procurement and implementation, said Arindam Guha, senior director, Deloitte in India. “We are already seeing widely varying models.”

Some cities are going for two packages, others are opting for a pan-city solution and the rest for area development.

At a conference to announce the list, Naidu said the cities that participated in the competition improved the quality of smart city plans by more than 25 per cent to become eligible. Earlier, Lucknow had missed the list of first 20 smart cities but has now improved the quality of its plan by 19 per cent. Those showing maximum improvement at 27 per cent are Shimla, Imphal, and Ranchi.

The minister said a “renaissance of the urban sector has been set in to motion”, while referring to smart city and Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) schemes.

According to Jaijit Bhattacharya, partner-infrastructure and government services, KPMG India, the release of the list has given a boost to the credibility of the government in pushing forth with the Smart Cities plan in a time-bound manner. “The initiative will significantly benefit the economy and the people and help build demand for industry.”

The latest list of 13 includes

Warangal (Telangana), Dharamsala (Himachal Pradesh), Chandigarh and Faridabad (Haryana), Raipur (Chhattisgarh), New Town Kolkata (West Bengal), Bhagalpur (Bihar), Panaji (Goa), Port Blair (Andaman & Nicobar islands), Imphal (Manipur), Ranchi (Jharkhand), Agartala (Tripura)