Jalandhar sets May deadline for upgraded Smart City proposal

Smart City Jalandhar

The Jalandhar Municipal Corporation (JMC) is likely to submit its Smart City Proposal in the month of May with an objective to get a place in the second round of Smart Cities project. Currently, its working hard to upgrade its proposal.

“For the second round we would only be focusing on upgrading the proposal theoretically, and thereafter we would submit it to the state high power committee for Smart City, which in turn would submit it to the urban development ministry,” Sunil Jyoti, Mayor, said.

In the previous round, the local development authority had organised various awareness programmes and had conducted public participation campaigns, including essay competition, quiz, conventions in educational institutes but this time the office would only work upon improving its presentation on papers.

According to an official,  the JMC had recently held a meeting with the Smart City consultants on the same and had directed them to work on certain parameters of the proposal.

In addition to Jalandhar, Amritsar will also be competing for a spot in the second round.

Jalandhar, which is unaware of the reasons of its failure in the first round, was at 27th position with a score of 53.8, while Amritsar was at 25th position with a score of 54.55. Only Ludhiana from the state was able to bag a place in Smart City project in the first list.

Earlier, the Central government had stated the total points which all the 98 competing cities had scored but Jalandhar could not get the details of the factors on which they were lacking. However, the JMC officials consider that lack of public involvement could be the factor of their failure.

“The JMC had directed the consultants to upgrade the proposal based on the first five smart cities, including Bhubaneswar, Pune, Jaipur, Surat and Kochi and look after the factors in which they were lagging behind,” Jyoti informed.

The second round of selection of cities under Smart City project is going to be tougher as all the 54 competing cities have geared themselves.The JMC will also have to maintain its position ahead of 23 cities which have been chosen by the ministry irrespective of the points they would score in the second round for the attaining top 40 position.