The list of 98 Smart Cities released by the Centre on Thursday shows that the objective grading criteria of the mission has not deterred political considerations from creeping in to selection process.
The most glaring omission on the list was the name of the 13th Smart City of Uttar Pradesh. The two contenders that were in a tie for the last slot were Meerut, the constituency of BJP MP Rajendra Agarwal and Rae Bareli, the Lok Sabha seat of Congress President Sonia Gandhi. Papers available with The Indian Express show that Rae Bareli was Akhilesh Yadav government’s final choice for the 13th position for Smart Cities in UP. While in case of all other states, the Centre has gone with the state’s recommendation, in this case it decided otherwise. “UP first recommended one city and then another. Both have equal marks so we have have asked them some questions. A decision will be taken objectively once they get back with their reply,” said Union Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu.
Smart City full list: Check which cities of UP, Tamil Nadu, Bihar make it to the list of 98
Agarwal, the BJP MP from Meerut, said that he has been personally raising the issue with Naidu. He has accused the Samajwadi Party government of manipulating the numbers in favour of Rae Bareli, where most elected representatives are from Congress or SP as against Meerut where the mayor, three MLAs and the MP are from the BJP. “Both Meerut and Rae Bareli scored 75 marks out of 100 and the state administration even decided that they will go with Meerut which is a bigger city and a historically significant one. But under political pressure, it finally went with Rae Bareli,” alleged Agarwal.
The Rs 48,000-crore mission has seen all states sending in their nominations by the July 31 deadline barring Jammu and Kashmir which has asked for more time to decide on whether the winter capital of Jammu or the summer capital of Srinagar should be their Smart City candidate. The conflict-ridden state was allowed only one nomination after demands by the state government to allow for two was turned down by the Centre. “It is a politically sensitive region and the state government has asked for more time. They will have to consider the consequences of the decision as well as the aspirations of people in both Srinagar and Jammu before arriving at a decision,” said an Urban Development ministry official. According to the ministry, both Jammu and Srinagar have similar scores in the grading system.
Karnataka’s list of six Smart Cities, which was sent to the Centre on the eve of polls for the BJP-ruled Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), excluded the capital city of Bengaluru. This led to trading of charges with Congress chief minister CM Siddaramaiah blaming the Centre for the omission and UD minister Naidu hitting back at the CM by stating that the state used its discretion to leave the IT city out. Incidentally, Bengaluru was the only capital city to figure in the top ten list in the recently released Swachh Bharat rankings and Smart Cities score card gives 10 points for Swachh Bharat alone.
In Odisha, the government’s choice of Rourkela over Cuttack has led to severe agitations with the opposition corporators from Congress accusing the ruling Biju Janata Dal party of giving more marks to the Rourkela Municipal Corporation for political gains. Odisha is allowed only two Smart Cities, the first one being the capital city of Bhubaneswar. The Maharashtra government’s attempts to present the two separate municipal corporations of Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad as a single urban agglomeration on its final number tenth slot fell through after elected representative from Pune protested against having to share funds. As a result, the smaller town of Pimpri-Chinchwad was edged out of the race. “The union ministry has decided that both come under separate municipalities and hence only one can be nominated,” said an official.
