12 crore people to become citizens of Smart Cities

New Delhi, Aug 27: There are about 12 crore people in the country who will be the direct beneficiaries of the Smart City project.

The total population of these proposed 98 Smart Cities is about 12 crore accounting for 35 per cent of country's total urban population as per the 2011 census, Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said while releasing the list.

As per the profile of the selected cities, 35 cities and towns have a population between one and five lakh. There are 21 cities with population ranging between five and 10 lakh.

25 cities have population of above 10 lakh and below 25 lakh. A set of 5 cities are in the population range of 25 to 50 lakhs.

Four cities - Chennai, Greater Hyderabad, Greater Mumbai and Ahmedabad have population of about above 50 lakh each.

Out of 98 cities, 24 are capital cities, another 24 are business and industrial centres, 18 are of cultural and tourism importance, 5 are port cities, and 3 being education and health care hubs.

The cities which have have population of one lakh and below but figure in the list are Silvassa, Diu, Kavaratti, Pasighat in Arunachal and Namchi in Sikkim.

Nine capital cities that could not be nominated for Smart City development are Patna, Itanagar, Shimla, Banglaore, Daman, Thiruvanathapuram, Puducherry, Gangtok and Kohima.

New Town near Kolkata in Bengal, Panaji in Goa and Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh are among 8 cities which are in the Smart City list.

Bidhannagar, Durgapur, Haldia are other three cities to be developed as Smart City in Bengal. Chennai, Erode, Salem, Coimbatore, Madurai and Vellore are among 12 cities from Tamil Nadu that find place in the list.

While Dehradun from Uttarakhand and Agartala from Tripura have been selected, Greater Hyderabad and Greater Warangal are from Telangana.

Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Amritsar have found place in the list from Punjab while Bhubaneswar and Rourkela from Odisha bagged the slots. From Rajasthan besides Ajmer, pink city Jaipur alongwith Udaipur and Kota find place in the list.

Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad, Surat and Rajkot are among six cities from Gujarat that got the nod. Ranchi and Dharamshala will represent Jharkhand and Himachal respectively in the list.

Karnal and Faridabad from Haryana and Kochi from Kerala are in the coveted list released by the centre. Biharsharif, Bhagalpur and Muzafarpur from Bihar while Vishakhapatnam, Tirupati and Kakinada from Andhra have also found place in the list.

PTI