Odisha seeks more cities under Smart City tag

Bhubaneswar, June 25:

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Saturday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to consider including his state’s Cuttack, Sambalpur and Berhampur in the Smart City list.

Speaking through videoconferencing during the launch of the flagship Smart City Mission into implementation mode by Modi at a function in Pune, Patnaik said: “I am sure Hon’ble Prime Minister will kindly consider including the historic cities of Cuttack, Sambalpur and Berhampur.”

“… with Bhubaneswar having topped the Smart City challenge, the people of other cities also aspire to be included in this initiative,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Odisha government on Saturday said that it would submit the final project plan for Rourkela Smart City by end of June.

The project proposal envisaged investment of around Rs 2,500 crore out of which, Rs 500 crore is expected from the Union Government and rest Rs.2000 crore would be arranged from state government and other sources by way of convergence.

The state level high-powered committee meeting held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi gave green signal to the project for onward transmission to the central government.

“We discussed about the smart city proposal of Rourkela city. The project would be submitted to government for onward transmission to Govt of India. Rourkela this time would compete with 66 other cities of the country in smart city competition,” said the Chief Secretary.

The district administration along with Rourkela Municipal Corporation has augmented their trial to develop the city’s physical and social infrastructure to come out successful in national level competition to be held shortly.

Considering various contours of the project, Padhi advised the ULB to focus on convergence of various schemes and projects at ground level so as to maximize the outcomes. (IANS)