India's Smart City List

In June 2015, the 'Smart City' Mission was launched by our Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a vision to develop 100 cities across the country to make them citizen friendly and sustainable. Now, having said that, there is no exact definition of "what is a smart city?".

As per the official document released by the government. "It (Smart City)means different things to different people. The conceptualisation of Smart City, therefore, varies from city to city and country to country, depending on the level of development, willingness to change and reform, resources and aspirations of the city residents."

What is the "Smart City Mission"?

The idea is to develop 100 cities as models for their nearby cities and towns. It is not a project where the government is funding states for urban development; it is how the cities have interpreted "smartness."

Each state or country for that matter has a different perspective of a smart city. Indian cities would emphasize on adequate water supply or better infrastructure when compared to a country whose demography is very different.

Smart City Challenge

The Union Ministry of Urban Development is carrying on the whole mission with the state governments. This is the first time a competition has been the deciding factor for choosing cities to fund.

There was a "Smart Cities Challenge" that took place where state governments nominated their cities to compete against each other to receive the benefits of the mission. All states and Union territories except West Bengal are participants of this mission. West Bengal was also a part of it before its state government decided to opt out of it.

 

The "Smart" Plan

It is a five-year program (2017-2022) where Financial aid will be given to cities by central and state governments. The results will be seen from 2022.

Each city selected will create a company with a CEO to implement the mission. The State and Central government will each provide the city with Rs 500 crore for the mission. So this means a total of Rs 1,000 crores in funding from both.

The projects may be executed through joint ventures, subsidiaries, public-private partnership (PPP), turnkey contracts, etc. suitably dovetailed with revenue streams. The additional fund will be raised from the financial market as debt or equity.

 

The First List (January 2016)

20 cities were selected out of 98 nominations in the first round of the challenge. These were called "light houses" meaning they would act as aspiring models for other cities.

The Second List

The Third List (September 2016)

The Fourth List (June 2017)

The Fifth List (January 2018)