Among 100 smart cities, Amritsar ranks 53rd, Jalandhar 62nd
Even as most parts of the city still grapple with lack of basic civic amenities, Ludhiana has retained the best smart city rank in the state.
The latest rankings released by the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) recently have ranked Ludhiana 49th among 100 cities being developed as smart in the country under the Smart City Mission (SCM). With Amritsar ranking 53rd and Jalandhar lagging at 62nd rank, Ludhiana remains at the top among three smart cities in Punjab.
Ludhiana Smart City Limited (LSCL) CEO, Aaditya Dachalwal, told The Tribune on Friday that the rankings were decided on the basis of various parameters, mainly depending on the progress of works under the SCM, by taking into consideration details of projects completed, in progress, under tendering and still under planning, besides analysing the expenditure aspect as well.
Dachalwal, who is also the Municipal Corporation Commissioner, disclosed that 64 projects worth Rs 711.3 crore have already been completed, 17 schemes amounting to Rs 187.7 crore were under execution, and four projects costing Rs 27.68 crore were under the tendering stage.
He said a sum of Rs 959.25 crore had been allocated under the SCM to Ludhiana, including Rs 490 crore from the Centre and Rs 469.25 crore from the state, of which Rs 944.72 crore, accounting for 98.49 per cent of the allocation, has already been utilised.
“Since the SCM implementation has been extended till March, the work on the ongoing projects has been expedited to meet the deadline,” the MC chief said.
On the general public perception that the SCM had not made any impact on the entire city and all six MLAs of the rich million-plus city lamenting in unison that the mission has neither beautified nor developed Ludhiana on the whole, the LSCL CEO said: “The Smart City concept was an area-based development for which the West Assembly segment was chosen through citizen participation. In the West segment also, a defined area was picked up for targeted interventions, which was being developed as a replicable model for other parts of the city.”
He said besides spending 25 per cent of the total funds under the SCM on the Buddha Nullah rejuvenation, several pan-city projects such as street lights, integrated command control centre, e-challaning system, CCTV network and sports infrastructure had also been created and developed for the entire city. “Those raising objections are oblivious of the fact that the SCM was never for the entire city,” Dachalwal said.
This time’s ranking was better for Ludhiana than 2020 when it was ranked at 54th spot in the country. Since then, its ranking has been constantly improving. From 54th rank in 2020, Ludhiana had ranked 37th in 2021, 48th in 2022, 32nd in January 2023, 48th in October 2023, 53rd in January 2024, 52nd in June 2024, and has retained the 49th rank of October last in January 2025. However, the latest ranking was 1 spot down from the October 2023 and 2022 positions and 17 ranks below the January 2023 rank, which was the best so far, but a jump of four spots as compared to January last.
But despite the national rankings going up and down, Ludhiana continues to remain the best among three smart cities in the state since 2023. In 2022, Ludhiana was adjudged the second best in Punjab with Jalandhar bagging the top spot and Amritsar finishing third.
In 2023, Ludhiana jumped to the top spot in the state with 32nd rank while Jalandhar had slipped to third rank in the state with 67th rank in the country and Amritsar had stood second in Punjab with 53rd national ranking.
Ludhiana spread over 159 sq-km area with an estimated population of 20 lakh, was among 100 cities in the country and three in the state, which was selected under the SCM to be developed as a smart city in the first round of the selection by the MoHUA in 2015.
Thrust on meeting deadline: MC chief
“Ludhiana, which is the industrial and financial capital of the state, having a large migrant population, is fast moving towards becoming a smart city as envisaged under the SCM of the Centre and the state government. Our major thrust is on completing ongoing projects till March,” said Aaditya Dachalwal, MC Commissioner-cum-LSCL CEO.
Among three in state
TheCentre had selected Ludhiana, Amritsar and Jalandhar under the SCM for developing them as smart cities.
Rs 1000-cr corpus
The selected cities were granted Rs 1,000 crore each, on the equal sharing basis of Rs 500 crore each by the Centre and state.
26L vehicles, 4K-km roads
With roads spreading over 4,000 km, Ludhiana has almost 26 lakh registered vehicles.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Nitin Jain
Quelle/Source: The Tribune, 04.01.2025
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