Chennai, Kovai in 12 Smart Tamil Nadu cities
The capital was ranked at 12th position in the list of cities from TN
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2015-08-28 07:10 GMT
Chennai: After the Swachh Bharat ranking clanger, the Chennai Corporation can boast of a moral victory after the ministry of urban development named the city in a list of 98 for developing under the Smart City Mission.
Chennai is one among the 12 cities in Tamil Nadu, the others being Tiruchirapalli, Tirunelveli, Dindigul, Thanjavur, Tiruppur, Salem, Vellore, Coimbatore, Madurai, Erode and Thootukudi (respectively in that order), to have made the list. The capital was ranked at 12th position in the list of cities from TN to have made the grade.
Chennai is only one of four metropolitan cities with a population in excess of 50 lakh to figure on the list. The others are Greater Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Greater Mumbai. Only Uttar Pradesh with 13 entries on the list had higher allotments than Tamil Nadu.
Under the Smart City Mission, the Centre will provide a funding of Rs 100 crore per year for five years to each city with the target that the cities develop IT connectivity and ensure core infra such as water and power supply, proper sanitation and waste management, public transport besides affordable housing.
Interestingly, Bengaluru, which was the top ranking metro city in the previously released Swachh Bharat list, does not figure in the selection for Smart City. Along with Bengaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, Kolkata, Gangtok, Shimla, Itanagar and Patna figure as notable exclusions among state capitals.
Including Puducherry and Daman, the total capitals excluded were nine, the ministry announced. Capital cities, however, accounted for a quarter of the entries on the list. As many as 65 small and medium towns finding their place on the list, the ministry said, was a welcome feature as it would lay a good foundation for better urban management, when they expand further in the future.
Releasing the list, the Union minister for urban development, Venkaiah Naidu said that the 98 cities had a combined 13 crore population and that it was 35 per cent of the total urban population in the country. Naidu added that 24 cities on the list were industrial centres, 18 were cultural hubs, five were port cities and three were educational and health care hubs.
Describing the situation as ‘perform or perish’ for the states and urban local bodies, Naidu said that an opportunity to recast the country's landscape ought not to be missed.
“We are not just aiming at making our urban landscape fanciful and flashy. The prime objective is to enhance quality of urban life by addressing deficiencies in core infrastructure. Expectations in various quarters may be high but the Mission is very practical and realistic in its intentions and objectives,” Naidu observed.
The cities were nominated by the respective states and union territories at the end of first stage of ‘City Challenge’ competition, in which the urban local bodies were evaluated based on their financial and institutional capacities as well as their past track record. Now, all the selected cities will have to prepare city level Smart City plans and the ministry will evaluate these in the second stage of the competition based on a broad set of criteria.