The Ministry of Urban Development India today said that 85 of the 98 cities included in the Smart City Mission have submitted city level Smart City Proposals within the stipulated time.
While 17 proposals were submitted yesterday, 68 proposals were received in the Ministry today, the last day for submission.
While Tamil Nadu Government, preoccupied with flood management in Chennai and other parts of the state could not submit the proposals, Telangana Government sought to replace Hyderabad in the Smart City Mission by another city, to be communicated later.
To ensure active participation from the participating states, the Ministry organized three Smart City Consultation Workshops, one Smart City Ideas Camp, five rounds of Webinars and one Proposal Enhancement Workshop to enable states and urban local bodies formulate proposals as per Mission Guidelines.
Ministry of Urban Development also provided 8 Region-wise panels of consultants so that states and urban local bodies could chose consultants for preparation of smart city proposals through tendering, thereby saving on time.
The project also sees participation from 30 foreign companies from 20 countries. Some of them include KPMG, KcKinsey, CISCO Systems, Price Waterhouse Coopers, DeloiteToucheTohmastsu, Jones Lang La Salle, Dorsh Holding GmbH, Knight Frank, Tractabel Engineering SA, Haskoning DHV Consulting Pvt Ltd., Grant Thornton, Happold Engineers, Ecorys Netherlands BV.
Cities with which foreign companies were associated in preparation of smart city proposals include: New Delhi Municipal Council, Agartala, Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Aurangabad, Bhagalpur, Bhabaneshwar, Bhopal, Greater Mumbai, Ghaziabad, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Pune, New Town Kolkata, Kota, Ranchi, Rourkela, Ujjain, Visakhapatnam, Tirupati, Tumakuru (Karnataka) etc.
Total population of 98 mission cities is 13 crore (130 million) accounting for 35 percent of country’s urban population. Capital cities not included in Smart City Mission are: Bengaluru, Gangtok, Itanagar, Kolkata, Patna, Shimla and Thiruvanathapuram.
image courtesy: http://www.hannovermesse.de
Rajani Baburajan