Smart cities at the end of the day need smart people, said Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs (Independent Charge), Hardeep Puri while addressing the second apex conference of smart city CEOs here on Tuesday.
"Smartness in terms of people depends on the behavioural change. We can build the smartest city in the world but we will need citizens’ outreach," said Puri.
However, things are changing with several stakeholders taking initiatives such as organising various educational campaigns which will benefit the citizens, added Puri.
So far, all 100 Smart cities have established their Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) constituted their City Level Advisory Forum (CLAF) and all cities have appointed Project Management Consultants (PMC), he said.
Launched in 2015, total of 100 cities have been selected in four rounds under the Smart Cities Mission.
“We are not going to stop at 100 smart cities, if there were more resources we should have chosen five times of the number,” said Puri. Adding that these selected 100 cities will become a template for others.
He added, 3, 105 projects worth Rs 1,22,856 crore have been tendered in Smart Cities Mission and of which 2,298 projects about Rs 75,049 crore worth have issued work orders.
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