June deadline approaches, 20 lagging Smart Cities told to speed up projects

Sources said among the 20 cities covered at the review meeting were six from the North-East: Aizwal, Gangtok, Guwahati, Imphal, Shillong and Pasighat. Five were in Union Territories: Diu, Kavaratti, Port Blair, Puducherry and Silvassa; three were state capitals Amaravati (Andhra Pradesh), Panaji (Goa) and Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala).

Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh, Faridabad in Haryana, Jalandhar in Punjab, Atal Nagar in Chhattisgarh, and Bhagalpur and Muzaffarpur in Bihar were also in the list of this 20.

Some cities lagging behind were selected for the Smart Cities Mission in later phases while many of the smaller cities had “lack of capacity,” an official said. Among issues flagged by these cities were related to land availability, approvals and clearances.

For example, in the North-Eastern cities lagging behind, among the projects proposed were those meant to improve walkability, construction of multi-level car parks, smart water and electricity metering; solid waste management, including RFID-tagged garbage bins, and new landfill sites.

Among ongoing projects in Bhagalpur and Muzaffarpur, are the construction of an open-air theatre, swimming pool, sports complex and development of a “Smart Road Network”.

Under the Mission launched in 2015, all 100 selected cities – 66 had a population of under 10 lakh each — had to set up an Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC), a target, the Ministry announced in 2022, had been achieved.

Apart from CCTV surveillance feeds, all municipal services and grievance redressal mechanisms were linked to the ICCC. Indeed, during the Covid-19 pandemic, some cities turned their ICCCs into emergency response centres for providing hospital, oxygen supply and other information.

Of the 7,742 projects worth Rs.1,81,561 crore proposed by the 100 cities in the Mission, 5,002 projects worth Rs 92,561 crore have been completed, according to the Smart Cities Mission’s official website as on March 11. About 49 per cent of the projects are still in progress.

In contrast to the 20, some cities have nearly completed all their projects and will be able to meet the deadline, officials said.

Sources said the top 20 cities in terms of completion of projects include four each in Rajasthan (Udaipur, Kota, Jaipur and Ajmer); and Karnataka (Tumakuru, Hubballi-Dharwad, Shivamogga and Belagavi).

Three cities in Tamil Nadu (Vellore, Madurai and Tiruppur); two each in Gujarat (Surat and Ahmedabad); Uttar Pradesh (Agra and Varanasi); and Madhya Pradesh (Bhopal and Indore); are also in the top 20 Smart Cities in terms of completion of projects. Pune, Ranchi and Bhubaneswar are also in the top 20.

Surat, ranked No. 1, proposed an intelligent traffic management system, complete with an app to live-track buses and restoration of the heritage building Surat Castle. Agra, at second rank, had proposed a heritage walk around the Taj Mahal, beautification of 2-km around the heritage walk and improvement of the facade of traditional houses.

Under the Smart Cities Mission, cities were invited by the Ministry to submit proposals for improving waste management, mobility, e-governance, health services and other municipal services using technology and innovative solutions.

Once selected, the cities were meant to complete their projects within five years. In 2021, however, the deadline of the mission was extended to June 2023 for all 100 cities.

The Smart Cities Mission statement and guidelines published in 2015 said the first question was “what is a smart city?”.

“The answer is, there is no universally accepted definition of a Smart City. It means different things to different people. The conceptualisation of Smart City, therefore, varies from city to city…depending on the level of development, willingness to change and reform, resources and aspirations of the city residents.”