27 new cities including PM Modi's constituency Varanasi in Smart City list

NEW DELHI: Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu announced the next set of 27 cities for financing under the Smart City Mission today. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Lok Sabha constituency Varanasi along with Kanpur and Agra are among the 27 centres to be developed as smart cities. Poll-bound Uttar Pradesh has three cities in the list. Vadodara, Agra, Nagpur, Ajmer, Amritsar, Gwalior, Thane and Thanjavur are some of the other cities that have been named to be

developed as smart cities. The 27 cities will require investment of Rs 66,883 crore.

So far, the urban development ministry has selected 60 cities in three rounds and has covered 27 states and Union Territories. Only nine more states and UTs are still to get on board including Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir.

A maximum of five cities from Maharashtra have found place in the list of new cities that was released by Union urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Tuesday. Four cities each from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have also made it to the list followed by three from Uttar Pradesh and two each from Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan. One city each from Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Gujarat, Sikkim and Nagaland has been selected in this round.

In January, the government had announced a list of 20 cities for partial funding to be developed as smart cities, which would have facilities such as assured water and power supply, sanitation and solid waste management systems, efficient urban mobility and public transportation, IT connectivity and e-governance, among others.