Patna not in smart cities list

Patna has not been able to fulfil the basic parameters to participate in the first stage of the city-wide challenge for the Centre’s ‘100 smart cities’ mission. This, even as the State gears up for assembly elections.

“Out of the 20 States and Union Territories that have sent their proposals, capital cities such as Patna and Kolkata have failed to make the cut,” a senior official in the Ministry of Urban Development said.

Nominated cities Post the launch of the mission, States had been asked to nominate the assigned number of cities and towns from each State based on four broad criteria — existing service levels in city/town (25 marks), institutional systems and capacities (15 marks), self-financing (30) and past track record and reforms (30 marks).

“Cities which have been nominated by respective States on the basis of above criteria include Vishakhapatnam, Guwahati, Muzaffarpur, Chandigarh, Raipur, Panaji, Gandhinagar, Surat, Karnal, Puducherry, Jaipur, Lucknow, Aligarh, Varanasi, and New Town Kolkata, among others,” the official added.

States such as Jammu and Kashmir and Kerala have asked for another week to nominate cities.

Accordingly, the list of 100 cities for the challenge will be out by first or second week of August.

The 100 smart city nominations received from all States and Union Territories will be put through Stage 2 of the competition based on an elaborate criteria before funds are released to the top 20 cities and towns during the current financial year.

Criteria to be considered The four broad categories for stage one include — operational online grievance redressal system, online display of the municipal budget expenditure information (for the last two financial years), increase in collection of internally generated revenues (during the last three years), payment of salaries by the urban local body up to the previous month, percentage contribution of internal revenues of the urban local body (like tax revenue, user charges, rent) to fund the budget, the extent of establishment and maintenance costs of water supply met through user charges during 2014-15, and the percentage of internal revenues used to fund capital expenditure during 2014-15.

States were also asked to consider the percentage increase over Census 2011 in providing household toilets, imposing penalties for delay in service delivery, audit of accounts up to 2012-13, progress in respect of six ULB level reforms and percentage of JNNURM projects implemented.