Meeting of state ministers called to push smart cities vision

September 10, 2014

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NEW DELHI: In its bid to finalise the roadmap for NDA’s flagship scheme “100 smart cities” the Centre has called a meeting of state urban development ministers on September 12 for consultation.

Union urban development minister Venkaiah Naidu said on Thursday that he has written to the states to participate in the meeting since state governments have to play a big role in this pet project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Claiming that the planning for this massive programme is in advanced stage of finalisation, Naidu said, “Foreign governments have also sent notes on this expressing interest. We are studying them and will come out with a policy soon,” he said.

On Wednesday, the secretary to the urban development ministry Shankar Aggarwal had said that the process for finalising the framework for smart cities is a huge exercise and all possible pitfalls, effects and other factors are being considered before announcement of the policy. He had also said that private sector will have huge opportunities to put these projects in place.

He had also said that builders and developers for the smart cities would be adequately incentivised. As a part of the plan, while a few new cities would be developed as “smart” ones the prime focus is on improving infrastructure and living conditions in existing cities.

Source:Times of India