Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar wants all state capitals, such as Patna, that couldn't be shortlisted, be given an opportunity to compete for selection under smart city mission.
He met the Union Urban Development Minister, M.Venkaiah Naidu, on Thursday and discussed various issues relating to urban development in Bihar, a statement from the Ministry of Urban Development said.
Nitish Kumar felt that while selecting cities under this mission, parameters like regional imbalance, existing gaps in institutional capabilities and variation in current level of development need to be factored in, the statement said.
On this, Venkaiah Naidu informed Nitish Kumar that the inclusion of cities from each state in Smart City Mission was based on the evaluation of all claimant cities by respective state governments and the selection of first batch of 20 cities was based on a competition among 97 cities as per criteria evolved in consultation with states.
He added that a special fast track competition is being conducted for one top ranked city from each of the 23 states that could not make it to the first list of winners in which Bhagalpur, ranked 65 could participate. Of the three cities from Bihar included in the Smart City Mission, Biharshariff ranked 91 and Muzaffarpur 94.