Cabinet okays 100 smart cities

New Delhi: The Centre on Wednesday gave its approval for the NDA’s pet smart cities project and the new urban renewal mission with a total outlay of about Rs 1 lakh crore.

The Cabinet gave its nod for Smart Cities Mission for development of 100 smart cities and Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (Amrut) in 500 cities for developing infrastructure with outlays of Rs 48,000 crore and Rs 50,000 crore respectively.

Smart City, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious project, is aimed at recasting the urban landscape by providing better infrastructure, besides driving economic growth. 

Each city selected under the scheme will get Central assistance of Rs 100 crore per year for five years. Cities will be selected based on “City Challenge Competition” intended to link financing with the ability of the cities to perform to achieve the mission objectives. 

Each state has to send its list of up to 10 cities and an expert panel will select maximum three cities in each state through the competition based on each urban local bodies capacity to implement the scheme.

While emphasising on citizen participation in planning and development, smart cities will focus on improving urban transport, water, sanitation,



solid waste management, public transportation and building houses for the poor.

In addition to Central funding for these projects, substantial private investments would be mobilised by states and urban local bodies through PPP model to provide infrastructure. 

Special Purpose Vehicle will be created for each city to implement smart city action plan, said a statement by the Ministry of Urban Development.

Amrut is the new avatar of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) and has been named after former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. 

Under Amrut, funding will be provided to develop urban infrastructure like sanitation, drinking water and waste water management in cities other than smart cities. 

The Centre will fund development of infrastructure under Amrut scheme in 500 cities having a population of 1 lakh and above.  The Cabinet also approved funding for 398 incomplete projects sanctioned under JNNURM.

The Central spending approved for the next five years under the two schemes which are interlinked assumes significance in the backdrop of the approved Plan outlay of Rs 42,900 crore for JNNURM  that was implemented over nine years between 2005 and 2014.