Earlier in January, the Ministry had come out with a list of nine smart cities making the total number of 99 Smart Cities. And recently, The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has selected Shillong as the 100th city to receive funding under the Centre’s flagship Smart Cities Mission after evaluation of the proposal submitted by it.

Last year, June 23 Narendra Modi government had released the third list of 30 smart cities, taking the total number to 90 under the Smart City Mission. The third list was topped by Thiruvananthapuram. Other cities that featured the list included Naya Raipur, Srinagar, Jammu, Pimpri Chinchwad, Karimnagar and Dehradun to name a few.

The Smart City Mission is measured as one of the most determined projects of the Modi government. Launched in 2015, the project has entered into execution stage where 100 cities will be provided Central funds to develop infrastructure and become smart.

How smart cities work in India?
In 2015, the smart city scheme was launched by the Central government, where states have to nominate cities and compete with others to get funding. 99 cities have been selected to be upgraded as part of the Smart Cities Mission after they defeated other cities in the challenge.

1st Round winners – Selection of 20 Smart Cities
2nd Round winners – Selection of 13 Smart Cities
3rd round winners – Selection of 27 Smart Cities
4th round winners – Selection of 30 Smart Cities
5th round winners – Selection of 9 Smart Cities

A special purpose vehicle has been formed to lead the mission in the cities selected.

So, what would smart cities of future do? According to the ministry, they would:
• Provide a new identity for the city.
• Deliver equal housing opportunities for all.
• Encourage mixed land use in area-based developments.
• Preserving and developing open spaces.
• Encouraging a variety of transport options.
• Make governance citizen-friendly, cost-effective and technologically advanced.
• Create walkable localities and reduce jamming, air pollution, and resource depletion, apart from improving the local economy.
• Applying smart solutions to infrastructure and services in area-based development to improve them

Bottomline: The Smart City initiative is not about the Union government providing extra resources for urban development. The scheme is about citizens planning and understanding smartness. This is the first time, a Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) program has used a competition- based method as a means of selecting cities for funding, and used an area-based development strategy.