Hyderabad: Three cities in Andhra Pradesh and two cities in Telangana state will be developed as smart cities by the central government. The Union Ministry of Urban Development has finalised the maximum number of smart cities in each state based on the urban population and other criteria.
All cities nominated by state governments, using a set of criteria developed by the Union Ministry, will compete against each other. A panel of experts will develop ranking of all the 100 smart cities in the country and only first 20 would be eligible for funding during the current financial year.
The next 40 would be eligible for funding in the next year and the last 40 would be developed in the third year. The lower ranked cities would have to plug their loopholes, as advised by the Union Ministry, in the meantime.
Apart from the smart cities, Andhra Pradesh will also get to develop 31 towns under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Trans-formation (AMRUT) scheme while Telangana state will get to develop 15 cities. AMRUT scheme is the revamped version of the UPA’s Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).
PM Narendra Modi will launch the smart cities and AMRUT projects, earmarked Rs 48,000 crore and Rs 50,000 crore respectively, on Thursday. He will also release the broad guidelines for the two projects.
While assigning the 100 smart city slots among states/UTs, geographical equity has been taken into consideration to ensure that each State/UT gets to develop at least one smart city. For the selection of AMRUT cities, broad criteria is that cities/towns with population of above one lakh.
