New Delhi: Indore was adjudged the best smart city in India in the fourth edition of the central government’s Smart Cities Mission, results of which were announced Friday. This is the second consecutive time the city, often considered India’s ‘cleanest city’, won the ‘National Smart City Award’.
Surat and Agra followed Indore on the list of India’s 100 smart cities, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, which announced the results said. The contest recognises work done under the Narendra Modi government’s Smart Cities Mission (SCM).
The contest came back after a year’s hiatus because of the Covid pandemic.
Madhya Pradesh won the best state award followed by Tamil Nadu, while Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh shared the third position. Chandigarh was adjudged the best Union Territory.
The felicitation ceremony will be held in Indore on 27 September.
Indore’s recognition for the ‘National Smart City Award’ comes on the back of the city’s administration push in the areas of cleanliness and sustainability. The city, which has been among the top performing cities since the start of the Smart Cities Mission in 2015 and has been clinching the ‘cleanest city tag’ for over five years, has done considerable work in areas of solid waste management, even using technology to monitor garbage collection.
Ministry officials told ThePrint that Indore has topped the list of cities that have completed most of the projects sanctioned under the Smart City Mission.
The awards were given in six categories this year — Project Awards (10 different themes), Innovation Awards (two themes), National/Zonal City Awards, State Awards, UT Award, and Partners Awards (three themes).
Under the project category, the theme include ‘mobility’, ‘built environment’, ‘governance’, ‘integrated command and control centre (ICCC) business model’, and ‘Covid innovation’.
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Coimbatore tops ‘built environment’, Chandigarh ‘mobility’
The category “built-environment” refers to initiatives to make a city more “people friendly” — including restoring and rejuvenating lakes, developing roads and making public spaces more accessible.
According to the awards announced Friday, Coimbatore topped the cities in this category for its initiative for restoration and rejuvenation of lakes and development of model roads.
Chandigarh, meanwhile, did well for its public bike-sharing in the ‘mobility’ category and e-governance initiatives in the governance category.
Ahmedabad scored the award for ‘Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC) Business Model’ category for successfully implementing the traffic management system through ICCC.
This year also saw a new category, the ‘Covid Innovation Award’ — a recognition that Surat bagged for Surat Municipal Corporation’s initiatives taken during the pandemic. These included launching a web portal and mobile application to track Covid cases.
“A total of 854 nominations in six categories were received from 80 qualifying cities out of 100,” a senior official from the housing and urban affairs ministry told ThePrint. “A total of 66 awards will be given by President Droupadi Murmu on 27 September.”
‘76% of the total work done so far’
Originally conceived for a period of six years, the Smart City Mission got its second extension until June 2024 in May this year.
Of the total proposed projects under it, 6,041 (76 percent) projects worth Rs 1.1 lakh crore have been completed and the remaining 1,894 projects worth Rs 60,095 crore will be completed by June next year, a ministry official said.
According to a statement from the urban affairs ministry, several cities are undertaking projects to improve mobility.
“For instance, in smart mobility, 1,174 projects have been completed worth ₹ 24,047 crore and another 434 projects are ongoing worth ₹ 15,940 crore. In smart energy, 573 projects have been completed and 94 are ongoing,” the ministry said in a statement.
Likewise, 573 smart energy projects have been completed and 94 are ongoing, the statement said. “In Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), more than 1,162 projects have been completed worth ₹ 34,751 crore and another 333 projects worth ₹ 18,716 crore are ongoing,” it said.
Many cities have also taken up initiatives to develop public spaces — the statement said a total of 1,323 such projects have been undertaken under the mission of which 1,063 have been completed.
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