Bhubaneswar To Be Showcased As One Of India’s First Smart Cities

Bhubaneswar To Be Showcased As One Of India’s First Smart Cities

Bhubaneswar and six other cities across India will be part of the ‘first set of smart cities’ to be declared by the central government as sustainable and citizen-friendly. This comes seven years after the launch of its flagship urban renewal mission to make 100 cities smart. Apart from Bhubaneswar, the cities that will be showcased as the first smart cities by the end of the year include Bhopal and Indore in Madhya Pradesh, Surat and Ahmedabad in Gujarat, Udaipur in Rajasthan, and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh.

The Smart Cities Mission that was launched on June 25, 2015, to develop cities with eco-friendly hi-tech solutions to urban problems will end in June 2023. Of the 100 cities, seven have completed most of the projects. While Bhopal leads with completion of 92% projects, Surat follows with 82.44%, Udaipur 78%, Bhubaneswar 76%, Indore, Varanasi and Ahmedabad with 70%. The cities are expected to complete the remaining work by the year-end.

In the final year of the mission, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs is concentrating on the bottom 40 cities facing implementation problems. “We believe in our ability to solve problems collectively which is why we conduct implementations every month – interactions between cities facing similar problems. Therein we troubleshoot issues and help each other chart future course of action,” said Smart Cities Mission director Kunal Kumar.

The mission has faced severe criticism for the pace of project completion. However, the ministry has maintained that big-ticket projects in cities were new ideas that took time in getting off the ground. In 2021-22, the ministry followed a tough approach to ensure all cities issued work orders for all planned Smart City Mission projects

The ministry told the cities that if work orders were not issued, they would need to fund the projects themselves. “We have followed a disciplined, time-bound approach for starting project implementation on ground, which is why by March 2022 we have been successful in achieving work orders for almost all projects,” Kumar said. The approach helped as the work orders issued doubled in March. In January, work orders worth Rs 4,800 crore were issued, February Rs 6,200 crore which doubled to Rs 12,500 crore in March alone.