Lucknow ranks 3rd in fast track round for smart cities

mygov_1447061692190667Lucknow has bagged the third rank among 23 cities competing in the fast track round to qualify for the second list of smart cities. A day after the names of 20 top cities are announced, the Ministry for Urban Development released two more lists- first list consisting of 23 cities competing in the fast track round and the second list of 54 cities, which need to submit their revised Smart Development proposal by June 15, 2016 to get selected by the Centre.

Additional Municipal Commissioner, P K Srivastava, said, “We are required to submit a fresh proposal after reworking on our shortcomings by April 15, 2016. The Centre will select top-scoring cities among the ones participating.” The Ministry will shortly upload the review of all 97 cities’ proposals describing where they scored and which areas they need to work upon. Srivastava added that the proposal will be reworked based on feedback given by experts who reviewed the Smart Cities’ proposals. Notably, Agra, which secured 35th rank in All India Ranking and is the second top scoring city in UP, didn’t find mention in the fast track round because of the norms announced by the Centre.”

Srivastava told that Lucknow Municipal Corporation hopes that Lucknow will win the intra-city competition as it is already third in its present proposal.

He added, “We have got time to see how top 20 cities are working on Smart City model. We may learn from their experiences. For finances, we had proposed PPP model and foreign loan through agencies like World Bank, and JICA. We will study these models in detail.”

The top 10 cities in fast track round are Warangal, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Kolkata, Panaji (Goa), Pasighat (Arunachal Pradesh), Dharamshala (Himachal Pradesh), Faridabad (Haryana), Raipur (Chhattisgarh) and Bhagalpur in Bihar.