In the latest Smart Cities Awards 2020 announcement by the centre, Indore (Madhya Pradesh) and Surat (Gujarat) won the award jointly for holistic development. The Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry evaluated smart cities across a gamut of themes like social aspects, governance, culture, urban environment, sanitation, economy, built environment, water and urban mobility before finalising the winners.
The awards commemorated six years of the Union government’s three initiatives to spur urban development: Smart Cities Mission (SCM), Atal Mission for Urban Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), and Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban (PMAY-U).Uttar Pradesh emerged on top, followed by Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
Indore won the Innovative Idea Award for its ‘Carbon Credit Financing Mechanism’.Ahmedabad bagged the Smart Cities Leadership Award, followed by Varanasi and Ranchi in the second and third spots respectively. Chandigarh took top honours among union territories.
Keeping the pandemic in mind, additional parameters of sustainable business model of Integrated Command and Control Centres and innovation in Covid-19 management were also counted for the awards. Varanasi and Kalyan-Dombivali were named the joint winners under this category.
The top nine performing cities awarded a four-star rating are Surat, Indore, Ahmedabad, Pune, Vijayawada, Rajkot, Visakhapatnam, Pimpri-Chinchwad and Vadodara. Of the total proposed projects under the Smart Cities Mission, 5,924 projects worth Rs 1,78,500 crore have been tendered so far, and work orders have been issued for 5,236 projects worth Rs 1,46,125 crore, the ministry said in a statement.
It also said that 2,665 projects worth Rs 45,080 crore have been fully completed and are operational (as on 23 June 2021).According to the ministry, under PMAY (Urban), about 1.12 crore houses have so far been sanctioned for beneficiaries, of which more than 83 lakh homes are grounded and over 50 lakh completed.
