Urban development ministry gets 85 out of 98 smart city proposals; Tamil Nadu asks for time

NEW DELHI: The urban development ministry today received 85 of the 98 smart city proposals as states and union territories kept to the stipulated deadline of December 15. Tamil Nadu, which sought some time to submit 12 proposals due to floods in Chennai and Telangana which sought to replace Hyderabad with another city, were the only exceptions.

While 17 proposals were submitted on Monday by seven states and one union territory, the ministry received 68 proposals on Tuesday. The total investment proposed in the 85 city plans is around Rs 2.5 lakh crore.

The ministry of urban development had provided eight region-wise panel of consultants and states and urban local bodies could choose from among these consultants for preparation of smart city proposals through tendering. Thirty foreign companies from 20 countries have been associated with preparation of smart city proposals of 45 mission cities.

These included the lkes of KPMG, McKinsey, CISCO Systems, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, JLL, Dorsh Holding GmbH, Knight Frank, Tractabel Engineering SA, Haskoning DHV Consulting, Grant Thornton, Happold Engineers, Ecorys Netherlands BV among others.

The total population of 98 mission cities is 13 crore accounting for 35% of country's urban population. The capital cities that have not been included in the Smart City Mission are Bengaluru, Gangtok, Itanagar, Kolkata, Patna, Shimla and Trivandrum.