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The sector, which covers an area of just one sq km , has a population of 12,000

A whopping Rs 4,932.5 crore of the proposed total investment of Rs 5,654.89 crore under the Area Based Development (ABD) of Smart City Mission is to be spent on Sector 43, a 1 square kilometre of Chandigarh’s total area of 114 sq km.Sector 43 has a population of about 12,000 people, but 87.2 per cent of the total funds would be spent on this sector, under the ABD.

With a bulk of `376 crore, sanctioned for smart city projects lying idle, the Rourkela Smart City Ltd (RSCL) is under fire for its casual approach.

Failure of RSCL to implement development projects under the Smart City Mission has come in for criticism again with Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan on September 25 shooting off separate letters to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and Union Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri seeking their intervention to expedite the pending projects.

Implementation of the Smart City project in 60 towns will entail an investment of Rs 1.35 lakh crore and 20 cities have started rolling out their schemes, says Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu.

While there is a stiff competition among states to get smart city projects in their cities, Uttar Pradesh has so far not shown any interest in the mega scheme, a brain child of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, says the Minister.

Six smaller cities of Karnataka outdo binger ones in the coveted Smart Cities project list, with the State bagging six nominations.

The State government has finally settled on six cities to be developed under the Centre’s 100 smart cities project, and sent the proposal to New Delhi.

Delhi Metro phase IV and Delhi-Meerut section of RRTS also receive in-principle approval

Smart city projects worth Rs 53,000 crore have either been completed, are under implementation or are in the tendering stage, a senior housing and urban affairs ministry official said.

Out of the 100 smart cities announced so far, as many as 94 special purpose vehicles (SPVs) have been established and 71 project management consultants have been appointed.

The Municipal Corporation of Jalandhar (MCJ) is all set to begin the citizens mass contact programme from Tuesday in which it would meet city residents and would seek their suggestions and ideas to be incorporated in the Smart City Proposal (SCP) to be submitted to the Ministry of Urban development by December 15 this year. The citizens would be asked to poll their top five areas on priority basis from the 16 selected by the MCJ to be developed under the smart city mission.

While informing this, Mayor Sunil Jyoti said that around three teams have been formed specially that would be looking after the contact programmes in ward areas.

The Modi government's smart city is a techno-utopia which ignores the basic tenants of democratic urban governance.

Along with "Make in India", "Smart Cities" seems to be the most hyped up and talked about endeavour of the Modi government. In Modi's recent foreign visits, both of these initiatives were brazenly promoted, most notably in Hannover Messe, Germany, the world's biggest industrial fair. These are not conventional policies (like the National Manufacturing Policy or the National Urban Renewal Mission) but seek to market a particular image of India to key global actors.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Secretary Mohammad Iqbal Khanday today discussed the proposals submitted by Municipal Corporations of Srinagar and Jammu for developing these two cities as 'Smart Cities'.

Khanday chaired a meeting of the State Level High Power Steering Committee (HPSC) for the implementation of Smart City Mission in the state here in this regard, an official spokesman said.

The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) on Tuesday said the agency has been selected as one of the first 20 Smart Cities by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and has so far completed 72 projects worth Rs 199.11 crore under the smart-city initiative with 39 more projects worth Rs 1,377.17 crore are in the pipeline. According to NDMC chairman Naresh Kumar, a total of 111 projects were identified under the initiative at a cost of Rs 1,576.28 crore since announcement of Smart City initiative out of which two-thirds have been completed.

Talking about the initiative, the Chairman said they have installed 3.1 MW of solar rooftop on all its buildings (92 buildings) and a further of 7.52 MW (on 90 buildings) is connected to its grid through net-metering basis. Nearly 95 solar poles were set up at various roundabouts, which are sleek poles with upper halves covered with solar panels and a small circular LED light at the top.

The Smart Cities Mission seeks to promote cities that provide core infrastructure and give a decent quality of life to its citizens.

Projects worth over Rs 2.05 lakh crore are proposed in 100 cities under the Smart Cities Mission and a significant progress has been made in terms of implementation of these projects, the Economic Survey 2018-19 said.

The Smart Cities Mission (SCM), which was launched in June 2015 for a five-year period, seeks to promote cities that provide core infrastructure and give a decent quality of life to its citizens.

Municipal Corporations of Ayodhya, Mathura-Vrindavan, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Gorakhpur, Firozbad and Shahjahanpur will be given ₹50 crore per year for the next five years under the Smart City mission

The Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday decided to provide ₹50 crore to seven municipal corporations for the next five years under the Smart City project.

So far, smart city projects in the state have been largely restricted to paper; there are now indications that these projects might finally start and results are visible

The smart city project in Punjab has been slow to take-off, plagued by slow grinding funding support from the state government, delay in appointment of project management consultants (PMC) and full-time chief executive officers and tepid response from private sector contractors for execution of projects.

T Nagar, Thousand Lights, Saidapet and Mylapore chosen.

Cheer up residents of T Nagar, Thousand Lights, Saidapet and Mylapore constituencies. Wards coming under these areas are to get smart initiatives under the smart city project, Chennai Mayor Saidai S. Duraisamy informed the corporation council on Saturday.

Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa has identified these areas and they would get the initial benefits, which will be later extended to other parts. Under the smart city project, T. Nagar will see decongestion and traffic will improve and overall solid waste management and e-governance will improve further. Corporation wards 135, 136, 141 and parts of 134 of T. Nagar constituency, wards 113, 117 and 118 of Thousand Lights constituency, wards 140 and 171 of Saidapet constituency and ward 122 of Mylapore will get roads re-surfaced and widened, he said.

SASTRA University holds workshop

The success of Smart City creation and management depends on real time data collection and analysis, speakers said at a workshop on “Smart City - Challenges and Opportunities,” organised by the SASTRA University at Thirumalaisamudram near here on Friday.

The Centre for Development Studies, attached to the School of Management, SASTRA University, organised the workshop.

The city corporation sanctioned projects worth 386 crore at the limited board meeting on Tuesday.

The board has sanctioned 125 crore for construction of storm water drains under the area-based development in T Nagar. “In 2015, 2016 and 2017, IAS officials conducted inspections and a study was carried out by Urban Financial Services limited (TNUIFSL) in various parts of the city for the storm water drains. At that time, some missing links were located at various locations. In that there are a few of them in T Nagar which is the smart city area. To ensure that the area is not inundated during monsoons, we have planned to complete the construction of the missing links ,” said an official.

Ongoing projects in T. Nagar under the Smart City project were inspected and reviewed by senior officials, including the principal secretary and corporation commissioner, on Friday.

Municipal administration and water supply department secretary Harmander Singh, Greater Chennai Corporation commissioner D Karthikeyan inspected projects worth 1,366 crore including the multi-level car parking lot on Thanikachalam Road and pedestrian plaza on Theyagaraya Road. A release from the civic body said the progress of the project was assessed by the commissioner, who asked the zonal officials to ensure it was completed within the May 2019 deadline.

The civic body has so far completed 18 projects worth ₹ 72.67 crore

Coimbatore Corporation ranks first among the 11 urban local bodies in the State in implementing projects taken up under the Central Government-funded Smart Cities Mission programme.

At a State-level review meeting, held in Chennai on Friday, which saw officials from the 11 municipal corporations participate, Coimbatore Corporation ranked first, said the civic body sources. Though the third-ranked Greater Chennai Corporation had also completed as many projects as the Coimbatore Corporation – 18 – the latter ranked first because it had no project that needed either approval or preparation of detailed project report.

Coimbatore appears to be topping the chart, in comparison to other cities in the state, with regards to Smart City implementation.

In accordance with a data submitted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, the city tops in the number of projects for which work has commenced as well as the number of projects which have been completed.

Coimbatore, the city in Tamil Nadu has left all the states behind and has topped in the implementation of the Smart City mission project.

As per the data submitted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, the city has topped in the number of projects for which work has been started along with the number of projects which have already been completed.

An independent director of the Coimbatore Smart City Limited has presented a project idea to the city corporation to set up a waste-to-energy plant to manage solid waste.

At a press interaction on Saturday, independent director G Krithiha said such a plant could be a feasible way to manage solid waste dumped in the city’s dump yard and also to manage the increasing inflow of waste. “I studied the solid waste management in the city and took stock of the number of garbage bins. I also mapped arterial roads and studied how often garbage is being removed,” she said.