NEW DELHI, December 29: Tamil Nadu government, which could not submit the Smart City plans by December 15 due to the problems arising out of the heavy flood in the state, has finally submitted 12 Smart City Plans to the Union Urban Development ministry.
State government, pre-occupied with management of floods in Chennai and other parts of the State, has accordingly sought time and submitted Smart City proposals for all 12 cities and towns in the State to the Ministry yesterday.
The 12 cities and towns included in the Smart City Mission are Tiruchirapalli, Tirunelveli, Dindigul, Thanjavur, Tiruppur, Salem, Vellore, Coimbatore, Madurai, Erode, Thoothukudi and Chennai, according to UD Ministry statement.
With this, 97 cities out of the 98 included in the Smart City Mission have submitted Smart City Plans to the Ministry of Urban Development. 85 cities have done so by the stipulated deadline of December 15, 2015.
Telangana government wanted to replace Hyderabad by another city. Uttar Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir are still to nominate one city each for inclusion in the Smart City Mission. While UP government has to choose between Rae Bareli and Meerut, Jammu & Kashmir wants both Srinagar and Jammu to be nominated as against the state quota of one city only.
UD Ministry has already set in motion the process of evaluation of city level Smart City Plans by setting up three teams of two experts each and the Plans received have been referred to them for evaluation in the second stage of City Challenge competition.
At the end of the evaluation, the first batch of Smart Cities to be financed during this financial year would be announced. The Ministry has set a cap of 20 such cities to be financed during this financial year and 40 each during the next two years.
