Warangal, Hyderabad from Telangana made it to the list of 100 Smart Cities

HYDERABAD: Warangal, Hyderabad from Telangana and Visakhapatnam, Tirupati and Kakinada from Andhra Pradesh made it to the list of 100 Smart Cities that the NDA government at the Centre proposes to develop in the coming years.

The list of cities was finalised at a meeting of the high-level committee of the Union Urban Development Ministry in Delhi on Thursday. The notification of the list of cities is to be issued on Monday. The TRS government had sent the names of three cities, but Karimnagar could not make the cut.

However, the competition is far from over as the Centre proposes to take up the development of 20 out of the 100 as smart cities in the first phase, with the remaining cities will be taken up thereafter. All the 100 cities will be given Rs 2 crore each for preparation of the master plan and the same has to be submitted to the Union government within 100 days of the notification.

Based on the merit of the master plans, each of the selected 20 cities will be given Rs 100 crore initially. In all, each city will be funded to the extent of Rs 500 crore in a phased manner.

While Telangana is confident that Hyderabad and Warangal will make it to the first list of 20 cities, AP is banking on Vizag and Tirupati, but is doubtful about Kakinada. According to sources, the Centre could not issue the notification on Thursday as there was a tie between two cities from the same state in a few instances.

The entire country has been divided into nine regions for the smart city initiative. Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Goa fall in the eighth region. To help the contenders with the preparation of the master plans, the Centre has appointed 11 consulting firms.

Each city was accorded points based on various parameters like tax collection, online grievance redressal system, the financial health of the municipalities, etc. Among the southern states, Tamil Nadu secured the highest number by bagging 12 cities in the list of 100, while Kerala secured only Kochi. Overall, UP bagged the highest number of 13 cities to make it to the list of 100.

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