PM Modi’s Varanasi to lead the way for smart cities! The 20 best performing cities under the Smart Cities mission have been tasked with taking the bottom 20 cities up the ladder. Each top-performing city has been paired up with one of the under-performing cities as sister cities on the basis of internal ranking. Ahmedabad which has outshone all the cities under the mission will pair up with Chandigarh while the Lok Sabha constituency of PM Modi, Varanasi, will take Amritsar under its guidance, PTI reported.
An advisory has been issued by the government in this regard and the top 20 cities have been asked to sign an MoU with bottom 20 cities before February 20. A timeline of 100 days has also been set to bring a turnaround in the development of the laggard cities. Cities with similar region and culture have been paired up under the initiative in order to ensure a harmonious exchange of ideas.
For instance, the holy city of Varanasi has been paired with another holy city Amritsar, an official said. The initiative has been taken by the nodal agency of the project Union Housing and Urban Affairs ministry on the basis of the internal ranking of 100 cities under the mission.
Apart from Ahmedabad and Varanasi the other top performers include Nagpur, Vadodara, Kota, Amravati, Ranchi, Dehradun, Surat, Tiruppur, Visakhapatnam, Bhopal, Udaipur, Indore, Agra, Kanpur, Pune, Nashik, Davanagere and Vellore.
Among other pairs, Ranchi and Pune will collaborate with Shimla and Dharamsala respectively while Bhopal will share its ideas with Mizoram’s capital Aizawl.
The Smart Cities Mission was launched by the Modi government in its first term in the year 2015 to ensure all-round development of cities with sustainable and modern facilities for its citizens. The scheme was launched in the wake of increasing urbanisation in the country. 100 cities were zeroed in and 5151 infrastructural projects worth Rs 2.05 lakh crore have been envisioned to be completed under the project.