Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Jan 19: The state government has submitted a proposal to the Centre seeking to cover five cities in the state under the 100 Smart Cities scheme.
The proposal was submitted to the Centre by minister of state for housing and urban development Pushpendra Singhdeo at the recently-concluded meeting of state urban development ministers convened by the Centre.
“We have submitted the proposal to the Union government to include five cities in the state – Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Rourkela, Sambalpur and Berhampur – in its smart city scheme,” Singhdeo said Monday.
A departmental official said modalities for the scheme have not been prepared yet and the state government has not received any guidelines from the Centre in this regard.
In the annual budget, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley had announced a provision of Rs 7,060 crore for the smart city scheme with Rs 70.6 crore for each urban centre.
The concept of a Smart City is a vision of an urban space that is habitable and eco-friendly, technologically-integrated and meticulously-planned with the use of information technology.
Meanwhile, in a bid to give a facelift to urban infrastructure facilities in and around Puri, the Centre has sanctioned Rs 22 crore under the Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY).
