Setting up 100 smart cities in India is an initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to reduce the pressure of Indian metros, Modi had promised 100 smart cities by 2022 to help meet the rush while campaigning for the general election last year. Today the union cabinet approved the 100 smart city projects which were announced by Union fiancé minister Shri Arun Jaitley in the first union budget of NDA government in the jult last year. The pompous promise of building 100 smart cities has been part of Modi’s acche din vision from the outset, and it would have been surprising if the budget had not made some mention of it.
Thought the amount allocated to the projects is Rs. 7060 crore which is around Rs. 70 crore pr city, the finance minister has clarified that this is just a seed fund to get the projects going while more funds will be allotted once the things starts rolling favorably. Earlier this month, Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu had said the project will be rolled from the next month onwards and then the competition race will start. Lot of companies are showing interest because now the government has allowed FDI, he had added.
What are smart cities and who needs them?
There is no specific definition for the smart cities as of now but the term could be defined as a vision of urban space that is ecological friendly, technologically integrated and meticulously planned with the reliance on the use of information technology to improve the efficiency. The smart city council has describe the smart cities that will will leverage the data gathered from smart sensors through a smart grid to create a city that is livable, workable and sustainable. According to the Smart Cities Council, all the data that is collected from sensors electricity, gas, water, traffic and other government analytics is carefully compiled and integrated into a smart grid and then fed into computers that can focus on making the city as efficient as possible.
India is urbanizing at very high rate compared to the census of 2001 there were 290 million Indians were living in urban areas which is estimated to reach 600 million by the year 2030. “The cost of not paying attention to India’s cities is enormous,” the MGI report said. “The speed of urbanisation poses an unprecedented managerial and policy challenge yet India has barely engaged in a national discussion about how to handle the seismic shift in the makeup of the nation.”
It is very clear that Rs 70 crore per city will not be enough; the entry of foreign direct investment is inevitable it’s unlikely the government will have the resources to pay for the cities. In the budget, the government announced that it was relaxing norms for foreign direct investment to make it easier for outside companies to invest in smart cities. In addition, India has spoken to France, Japan and Singapore about collaborating on the projects.
Here is The List of Proposed Upcoming Cities at a Glance
- Pune – Maharashtra
- Mumbai – Maharashtra
- Nagpur – Maharashtra
- Nashik – Maharashtra
- Aurangabad – Maharashtra
- Bhivandi – Maharashtra
- Calcutta – West Bengal
- Durgapur – West Bengal
- Haldia – West Bengal
- Habra – West Bengal
- Jangipur – West Bengal
- Ahmedabad – Gujarat
- Surat – Gujarat
- Vadodara – Gujarat
- Rajkot – Gujarat
- Bhavnagar – Gujarat
- Junagadh – Gujarat
- Gandhi Nagar – Gujarat
- Bhopal – Madhya Pradesh
- Indore – Madhya Pradesh
- Gwalior – Madhya Pradesh
- Burhanpur – Madhya Pradesh
- Jabalpur – Madhya Pradesh
- Chennai – Tamil Nadu
- Coimbatore – Tamil Nadu
- Madurai – Tamil Nadu
- Tiruchirappalli – Tamil Nadu
- Salem – Tamil Nadu
- Tirunelveli – Tamil Nadu
- Bangalore – Karnataka
- Gulbarga – Karnataka
- Bidar – Karnataka
- Bijapur – Karnataka
- Badami – Karnataka
- Pattadakal – Karnataka
- Mahakuta – Karnataka
- Thiruvananthapuram – Kerala
- Kollam – Kerala
- Kottayam – Kerala
- Tiruvalla – Kerala
- Ernakulam – Kerala
- Cochin – Kerala
- Thrissur – Kerala
- Hyderabad – Telangana
- Warangal – Telangana
- Karimnagar – Telangana
- Nizamabad – Telaganana
- Nalgonda – Telangana
- Guntur – Andhra Pradesh
- Vijayawada – Andhra Pradesh
- Kurnool – Andhra Pradesh
- Chittoor – Andhra Pradesh
- Kanpur – Uttar Pradesh
- Allahabad – Uttar Pradesh
- Lucknow – Uttar Pradesh
- Jhansi – Uttar Pradesh
- Faizabad – Uttar Pradesh
- Varanasi – Uttar Pradesh
- Jaipur – Rajasthan
- Ajmer – Rajasthan
- Bharatpur – Rajasthan
- Bikaner – Rajasthan
- Jodhapur – Rajasthan
- Kota – Rajasthan
- Udipur – Rajasthan
- Ludhiana – Punjab
- Amritsar – Punjab
- Jalandhar – Punjab
- Patiala – Punjab
- Muzaffarapur – Bihar
- Patna – Bihar
- Gaya – Bihar
- Bhagalpur – Bihar
- Bihar Sharif – Bihar
- Faridabad – Haryana
- Gurgaon – Haryana
- Panipat – Haryana
- Ambala – Haryana
- Guwahati – Assam
- Tinsukia – Assam
- Odalguri – Assam
- Tangla – Assam
- Goalpara – Assam
- Bhubaneswar – Odisha
- Cuttack – Odisha
- Rourkela – Odisha
- Sambalpur – Odisha
- Balasore – Odisha
- Shimla – Himachal Pradesh
- Dehradoon – Uttarakhand
- Haridwar – Uttarakhand
- Roorkee – Uttarakhand
- Jamshedpur – Jharkhand
- Dhanbad – Jharkhand
- Ranchi – Jharkhand
- Gangtok – Sikkim
- Pelling – Sikkim
- Yuksam – Sikkim
- Bishnupur – Manipur
- Chandel – Manipur
[su_youtube url=”https://youtu.be/M-r3NzugUwU”]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrJhqxYRJBU&channel=ChennaiExp2013 [/su_youtube]
The article contains the references from Rohan Venkataramakrishnan’s articles published in scroll.in
News Source: indiatvnews.com
Smart City video – Source India TV