Smart City plan more popular than Modi's 'Mann Ki Baat'

The ‘Smart City’ mission seems to have emerged as the most popular scheme of the National Democratic Alliance government, going by the citizens’ response on MyGov.in platform.

About 1.5 million have sent in their suggestions in about three months on how to make a city smart. The deadline for selection of the first 20 cities for government funding in the project is December 15.

Citizen participation is given a weightage of 16 per cent in the evaluation of Smart City Plans in the second stage of the ‘City Challenge Competition’.

Officials said the issue of ‘net neutrality’ had received 72,000 responses on MyGov.in between July and August. Even Prime Minister’s ‘Mann Ki Baat’ on All India Radio receives less response — about 60,000 an episode.

As far as popularity of cities goes, Bhopal has attracted the highest comments at 114,529 on the smart city plan. The others making it to the top charts include Indore with 107,628, Allahabad at 103,152, Haldia 75,763, Jhansi 61,048, Udaipur 60,129, Aligarh 49,484, Gwalior 47,164, Sharanpur 45,290 and Jabalpur 38,805.

Popular cities, according to the citizen response, include  Bihar Sharif  in Bihar; Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh; Chandigarh; Oulgaret, Puducherry; Tiruppur and Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu; Raipur and Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh; Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh; and Faridabad, Haryana.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while launching the Smart City Mission on June 25, had stressed the need for participation of citizens in urban development schemes.