Union Urban Development Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu on Friday announced the names of 30 new cities which have been added to the Centre's Smart Cities Mission. These new cities would attract a total investment of Rs. 57,393 crore and taking the total number of smart cities to 90.
Among the new selected cities, Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala topped the list. The other cities selected were Naya Raipur in Chhattisgarh, Rajkot in Gujarat, Amravati in Andhra Pradesh, Patna in Bihar, Karimnagar in Telangana, Muzaffarpur in Bihar, Puducherry, Gandhinagar in Gujarat, Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir, Sagar in Madhya Pradesh, Karnal in Haryana, Satna in Madhya Pradesh, Bengaluru in Karnataka, Shimla in Himachal Pradesh, Dehradun in Uttarakhand, Tirupur in Tamil Nadu, Pimpri Chinchwad in Maharashtra, Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh, Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh, Jammu in J&K, Dahod in Gujarat, Tirunelveli, Thootukkudi and Tiruchirapalli in Tamil Nadu, Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh, Aizawl in Mizoram, Allahabad and Aligarh in U.P. and Gangtok in Sikkim.
Naidu pointed out that 100 cities were supposed to be selected for the Smart Cities Mission in total. For the remaining 10 spots, 20 cities - Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh, Biharsharif in Bihar, Diu in Daman & Diu, Silvassa in Dadra and Nager Haveli, Kavaratti in Lakshadweep, Navi Mumbai, Greater Mumbai and Amaravati in Maharashtra, Imphal in Manipur, Shillong in Meghalaya, Dindigul and Erode in Tamil Nadu, Bidhannagar, Durgapur and Haldia in West Bengal, Meerut, Rai Bareilly, Ghaziabad, Saharanpur and Rampur in U.P. - would have to compete.