No Telangana city in Centre's smart list, AP gets two

Hyderabad: No Telangana city has made it to the list of 20 smart cities released by the Centre on Thursday. Two cities from AP figured in the list, which invited the wrath of Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who alleged ‘bias’ by the NDA government at the Centre towards Telangana.
The news about smart cities list broke while Mr Rao was addressing a press conference at the Telangana Bhavan.

Mr Rao, who read out the list, said, “There is no city from Telangana in the list of smart cities, while AP got two. Where have our cities gone? Did the crow take them away? This is nothing but bias. There is a limit to everything. If someone thinks that they can get the upper hand over TRS or me by doing these things, they are wrong.”

The Centre which shortlisted 98 cities for smart city status in Aug. last year in Stage-I competition had identified Hyderabad and Warangal. The Stage-II competition was held for these 98 cities to select 20 cities in the first phase.
But the CM wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in December 2015 requesting him to consider smart city status for Karimnagar in place of Hyderabad.

Mr Rao wanted the Centre to treat a metro city like Hyderabad as ‘A1 city’ and allot special funds for development since Hyderabad already had an income of nearly Rs 5,500 crore per year and giving Rs 100 crore to the city under the smart city tag would be of no use. But Hyderabad, Warangal and Karimnagar did not figure in the list of 20 smart cities. Warangal lost the place by a single point.

Union urban development minister M.Venkaiah Naidu denied any political bias in the selection of smart cities and said they were selected through a two-stage competition by considering various parameters.

He said the competition was as rigorous as the civil services examination.
“This is only the first list. Those which could not make it now can compete for the next round. The second list of 40 selected cities will be released in April. There will also be a third list of 40 cities, which means all shortlisted 100 cities in the Stage-I,” Mr Naidu said.

The Centre took into account parameters like city vision and strategy, cost effectiveness, and credibility of implementation. Each norm was assigned a weight. Cost effectiveness was accorded 30 %, public participation 16 % and smartness 10%.