Indian Government has announced the 20 winners of the Smart City Challenge competition for financing during this financial year. Bhubaneshwar topped the Challenge, followed by Pune, Jaipur, Surat and Kochi.
The Smart City Challenge was totally objective and transparent and results were based on responses given by over 1.52 crore Indian citizens who participated in this challenge.
Minister of Urban Development Shri M.Venkaiah Naidu said, “It was for the first time in the country and even in the world that investments in urban sector are being made based on competition based selection of cities.”
The winning cities will receive an investment amount of Rs. 50,802 Crore from the Ministry of Urban Development over next five years with all the cities proposing Public-Private-Partnership as a major vehicle of resource mobilization.
3 cities from Madhya Pradesh, two each from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan and one each from the remaining five made it to the winning list.
A total of 98 cities from 23 states and UTs had participated in this competition – The cities that were eliminated in the first round will have a chance to compete in the next round, but they will need to upgrade their proposals and come up with better plans. They can submit their new applications by 15th April, 2016.
The winning cities were adjudged based quality of their proposals – Bhubaneshwar got overall 78.83 percent followed by Pune at 77.42 percent. All cities in top 20 scored over 50 percent for their proposals. The parameters for getting good scores included cost effectiveness, citizen participation, feasibility and smartness of the proposal.
List of 20 Winning Smart Cities
| Rank | City | State |
| 1 | Bhubaneswar | Odisha |
| 2 | Pune | Maharashtra |
| 3 | Jaipur | Rajasthan |
| 4 | Surat | Gujarat |
| 5 | Kochi | Kerala |
| 6 | Ahmedabad | Gujarat |
| 7 | Jabalpur | Madhya Pradesh |
| 8 | Visakhapatnam | Andhra Pradesh |
| 9 | Solapur | Maharashtra |
| 10 | Davanagere | Karnataka |
| 11 | Indore | MP |
| 12 | New Delhi Municipal Council | Delhi |
| 13 | Combattore | Tamil Nadu |
| 14 | Kakinada | Andhra Pradesh |
| 15 | Belagavi | Karnataka |
| 16 | Udaipur | Rajasthan |
| 17 | Guwahati | Assam |
| 18 | Chennai | Tamil Nadu |
| 19 | Ludhiana | Punjab |
| 20 | Bhopal | MP |
[Image: Shutterstock.com]
