22 Smart Cities To Be Ready By April

India: Agra, Varanasi, Chennai, Pune and Ahmedabad are among the 22 cities that will complete all projects under the government’s ambitious Smart Cities Mission by next month, giving their citizens better quality of life and a clean and sustainable environment, officials said on Sunday.

In the remaining 78 cities selected under the mission, the ongoing projects will be completed in the next three-four months, a senior official of the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry said.

The Narendra Modi government launched its flagship Smart Cities Mission on June 25, 2015 and 100 cities were selected for redevelopment through four rounds of competition from January 2016 to June 2018.

According to the ministry, the mission’s objective is to promote cities that provide core infrastructure and give its citizens a decent quality of life and a clean and sustainable environment, besides adopting “smart solutions” to various issues.

The 22 smart cities where all projects will be completed by March are Bhopal, Indore, Agra, Varanasi, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Coimbatore, Erode, Ranchi, Salem, Surat, Udaipur, Visakhapatnam, Ahmedabad, Kakinada, Pune, Vellore, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Madurai, Amaravati, Tiruchirappalli and Thanjavur.

“We will complete 22 smart cities by March as projects in these cities are in final stages. In the next three-four months, we will be completing the project works of the remaining cities,” the official told PTI.