Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch Smart City projects on Saturday in a bid to kick off execution of Smart City Plans of 20 cities selected in the first round of ‘Smart City Challenge Competition’.
By Belal Khan
Prime Minister will launch 14 projects under the Smart City Plan of Pune at a programme to be presided over by the Minister of Urban Development M.Venkaiah Naidu, Maharashtra Governor Ch.Vidyasagara Rao and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis will also be present on the occasion.
Another 69 such projects will be launched the same day in the other Smart Cities entailing a total investment of about Rs.1,770 crore.
Saturday’s launch also marks the beginning of implementation of urban development plans based on five year action plans formulated after detailed analysis of infrastructure gaps in over 500 cities included in Smart City Mission and AMRUT, accounting for about 70 per cent of country’s urban population. This brings to an end the ad hoc and project based approach to urban development followed so far.
Smart Net Portal also will be inaugurated by the Prime Minister which enables the cities under different urban missions to share ideas and source solutions for various issues during the implementation of various missions.
All the first batch of 20 smart cities will be linked through video-conferencing on the occasion of launch of projects by the Prime Minister.
These 20 cities have proposed a total investment of Rs.48,000 cr in area development and Pan-city solutions.
