Citizens to decide financing of smart cities

Given the challenges involved in developing 100 smart cities, only the capable cities will be chosen under the Smart Cities Mission through a two-stage competition. Citizens too would play an active role in deciding the financial of smart cities. This was indicated in the Operation Guidelines for Smart Cities Mission released by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi while launching the Mission. The selection criteria to be used in both the stages of competition was elaborated in the Guidelines.

In the Stage-1 of City Challenge Competition, each State and Union Territory will score all their cities  based on a set of criteria and nominate the top scorers as per the indicated number of potential smart cities for participation in the Stage-2 of competition. 

The 100 potential smart cities nominated by all the States and Union Territories based on Stage-1 criteria will prepare Smart City Plans which will be rigorously evaluated in the Stage-2 of the competition for prioritizing cities for financing. In the first round of this stage, 20 top scorers will be chosen for financing during this financial year.

The remaining would be asked to make up the deficiencies identified by the Apex Committee in the Ministry of Urban Development for participation in the next two rounds of competition. 40 cities each will be selected for financing during the next rounds of competition.