100 smart cities to spend Rs 48,000 cr in five years: Hardeep Puri

Hardeep Singh Puri

The efforts are on to develop 100 smart cities within five years of their selection under the Government of India’s ambitious Smart Cities Mission, which will entail spending Rs. 48000 crore on various smart city projects, said Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, on Friday.

Hardeep Singh PuriIn a reply to a question asked in parliament by Diya Kumari, the Bharatiya Janata Party MP from Rajasthan’s Rajsamand, Puri said that 100 cities were selected under the Smart Cities Mission between January 2016 and June 2018. Each city will receive Rs. 500 crore worth of funding from the Central government, while equivalent amount will be contributed by the state government or urban local body to complete the developmental projects, he added.

In her budget speech on February 1, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced inclusion of five more smart cities under the ambitious urban development programme of the government.

Lucknow, Kanpur, Allahabad, Aligarh, Jhansi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Nasik, Rajkot, Surat, Amritsar and Jabalpur are among the 100 cities selected under the Government of India’s Smart Cities Mission.