Smart Cities: In new list of 27, Maharashtra, Karnataka, TN big winners

The Centre has released the third list of proposed smart cities under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's pet project.

Union Urban Development minister Venkaiah Naidu released the list of 27 cities from 12 states.

The smart cities list includes five cities in Maharashtra, four each in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, three in UP, two each in Punjab, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, and one each from Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Gujarat, Nagaland and Sikkim.

Congratulations to people of Amritsar & Govt. of Punjab as the historic city leads the list of 27 cities selected under the #smartcities

— Arun Jaitley (@arunjaitley) September 20, 2016

The cities are: Agra, Ajmer, Amritsar, Aurangabad, Gwalior, Hubli-Dharwad, Jalandhar, Kalyan-Dombiwali, Kanpur, Kohima, Kota, Madurai, Mangaluru, Nagpur, Namchi, Nashik, Rourkela, Salem, Shivamogga, Thane, Thanjavur, Tirupati, Tumakuru, Ujjain, Vadodara, Varanasi, Vellore.

Naidu said the 27 cities had been picked from 63 contending cities for the current fiscal after putting them through three rounds of tough competition where they were evaluated several criteria.

Rajasthan is proud to have 2 more of our cities--Ajmer & Kota--included in the list of #SmartCities. #SmartKota #SmartAjmer #SmartRajasthan

— Vasundhara Raje (@VasundharaBJP) September 20, 2016

"With this announcement, a total investment of Rs.1,44,742 crore has been proposed by 60 cities under smart city plans," Naidu said.

Thank Hon PM @narendramodi ji & Sh @MVenkaiahNaidu ji 4 inclusion of #Ajmer & Kota in #smartcities. It wil add pace to progress in Rajasthan

— Bhupender Yadav (@byadavbjp) September 20, 2016