Birthday of Sri Guru Ramdas Ji

Smart
CitieS
An artist view of Smart City
Jalandhar has won the race
along with Amritsar and Ludhiana
as the three cities from Punjab to
be developed under the Centre's 100
smart cities project.
Under the project, these smart
cities will soon have a smart grid system,
well maintained roads, smart traffic
lights, advanced CCTV cameras
installed on traffic signals, good water
and sewerage system, and e-governance
systems for all major public
services.
These selected cities across the
country would be developed as smart
cities till 2022 to promote industrialisation
and employment.
BUREAU REPORT
Each smart city will be given a
`500-crore grant from the Centre, besides
an additional `500 crore from the
state government. However, only the
top 20 cities of the country will get
funding for the project in the first year.
The remaining cities will be developed
as smart cities in the coming years.
Although Amritsar and Ludhiana
were the first to qualify for the smart
city tag, Jalandhar had to face a city
challenge competition, which considered
revenues, expenditure, availability
of parks, drinking water facilities,
solid waste management, greenery and
infrastructure related to transport, and
many other factors as per the guidelines
fixed by the Union government.
All the three selected cities scored
60 marks out of 100 on the basis of
their progress work and population
comparison.
The state government had sent a list
of six cities - Jalandhar, Amritsar, Ludhiana,
Patiala, Mohali and Bathinda -
for the smart city project. But the NDA
government had sent back the proposal
saying Punjab has only three cities as
its share in the project.
When the grants are sanctioned, the
Jalandhar Municipal Corporation
(MC) itself will be tasked with the responsibility
to develop roads, water
and sewerage connectivity, and im-
18 Punjab Advance October 2015