In what appears to be a balancing
act, the Centre has come out with a revised list of 13 cities, to be developed
as smart cities, many of them from non-NDA ruled states.
Lucknow, Bhagalpur, New Town in
Kolkata, Dharamsala, Warangal, Chandigarh, Faridabad, Raipur, Ranchi, Agartala,
Imphal, Port Blair and Panaji are the other cities chosen on Tuesday through a
fast-track competition.
The 20
cities selected in January under the scheme were Bhubaneswar, Pune, Jaipur,
Surat, Kochi, Ahmedabad, Jabalpur, Visakhapatnam, Solapur, Davangere, Indore,
the New Delhi area, Coimbatore, Kakinada, Belgaum, Udaipur, Guwahati, Chennai,
Ludhiana and Bhopal.
The names
were picked from a list of 97 cities submitted by states during a competition
last year. To qualify, states and
local administrations had to provide "smart answers" to a template
with 43 questions.
The smart cities are meant to ensure
24X7 power and water supplies, e governance, Internet connectivity among other
things.
When the Centre had announced the first list of
20 names, states like Bihar and their CMs had questioned why no name from their
state had figured on the list. The BJP had countered that even the PM was unable
to get his constituency included in the list.