The summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir has been dropped out from the list of 100 potential ‘smart cities’ as it failed to meet the eligibility criteria.
Srinagar could not even make it through Stage 1 of the selection process that included Institutional Systems and Capacities (15 points), Self-financing (30 points) and past track record (30 points).Besides Srinagar, Rae Bareli and the newly-formed Telangana’s state capital Hyderabad are also out of the smart city race.
Soon after BJP came to power in mid-2014, the Narendra Modi-led government announced the Smart City Mission, which envisaged developing 100 Indian cities into smart cities over the next five years.
Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) Commissioner, Showkat Ahmad Zargar said: “Our state had not met the eligibility criteria/ indicators including internal resources.”
He, however, clarified that it has nothing to do with choosing between Jammu and Srinagar as suggested by some media reports.
The selection process involves two stages. In the first round of competition, 20 out of the 100 cities would be chosen. The remaining would improve on their smart city plans and compete again.
The excluded cities have been asked to make up for the deficiencies identified by Union Ministry of Urban Development to compete again.
The 100 cities chosen have been distributed among the states and union territories on the basis of equitable criteria. The formula gives equal weightage to urban population of the state and the number of statutory towns.
Blaming the former Chief Secretary of the state, Iqbal Khanday, some officials, on condition of anonymity, said he himself changed the points from 75 to 45, making Srinagar ineligible for the project.
However, speaking to us, Khanday said: “I don’t remember anything about it. You can ask other officials. I don’t want to talk about this.”
Blaming the state government for the exclusion of Srinagar from the smart city project, the local residents said the government will neither change things on its own nor will let anyone else do it.
“The smart city project would definitely have worked here. This is a great loss for us. The government has let us down,” said a local trader, Jehanzeb.
