Others present on the dais included Union Minister of State for Labour Bandaru Dattatreya, AP’s Municipal Administration Minister Mr. Narayana, Principal Secretaries for Municipal Administration and Urban Development M.G. Gopal (Telangana) and Karikal Valavan (Andhra Pradesh) and Additional Secretary, Smart Cities, Government of India, Sameer Sharma.

The Smart City Regional Workshop in New Delhi for northern states and Gujarat was conducted on September 4 in New Delhi to discuss various aspects of preparation of Smart City Plans and related issues.

“Smart City Plans will be evaluated in the second stage of City Challenge competition based on such consultations and their economic and environmental impacts”.

Naidu urged the elected representatives and officials of the cities included in the Smart City Mission to leave behind the jubiliation over the same and face the tough challenge of making them smart, for which the clock has begun to tick.

Mr Venkaiah said, It is the ambitions of the citizens of a city and its governing body and their willingness to change their mindset and their ability to break new ground to mobilize resources that defines the contours and limits of a Smart City Plan for each city.

The Union minister was addressing a seminar which was attended by Mayors, Municipal Chairmen, Commissioners of 40 cities.

He expressed confidence that the urban landscape of the country would be recast to make urban areas “more livable and more effective engines of economic growth”. The last one would be organized at Kolkata covering all the 100 cities under the Mission.

Once detailed project reports are prepared and special goal vehicles formed to implement various projects, apart from local body funds, the Centre would also play a role in supporting various initiatives over the next five years.

“There are so many municipalities where the taxes have not been revised for five, six and seven years”. If you have the will, you will find a way to get resources, he said.

Yadav was reported to have said that smart cities are like wearing a “tie on kurta and pyjama”.

He stressed that “Smart City Mission is not a mere urban infrastructure upgradation (sic) mission”.

The Project mainly aims at developing urban spaces into satellite towns of larger cities and modernising existing mid-sized towns, for tackling excessive migration of people from rural areas to cities.