Smart City project
SHILLONG: In view of the Central government’s plans to develop smart cities across the country on a 50:50 funding pattern, the State government has asserted that Meghalaya would push the Centre to stick to the 90:10 formula.
Informing this here on Sunday, Urban Affairs Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh said the State government will impress upon the Central government not to have a blanket plan for the entire country since states like Meghalaya have their own peculiar situations.
“If the Centre does not agree to our argument, we will negotiate further with them,” she said.
It may be mentioned that a meeting was recently held where the State government discussed its second proposal to bid for the Smart City project.
She also said that the State cannot agree to the 50:50 formulae since Meghalaya’s resources are limited and dwindling.
She said that the State government would like to design its own city and the Centre cannot replicate model of other cities for Shillong since the situation is different.
The State government is also sharing notes with Aizawl and other hill stations on the matter of the Smart City project to see how the other hill stations are planning and executing their bid for the project.
Earlier, the Union government had announced the first list of 20 urban areas that would be developed as ‘smart cities’ with only Guwahati qualifying from among the Northeastern cities and Shillong finding itself on the 70th rank in the list.
Shillong, it may be reminded, is among the 98 cities selected by the Central government for the ‘smart city’ project which is an area based approach to re-develop an area with modern amenities. The proposed ‘smart cities’, to be developed in a phased manner, will have smart public transport system and IT enabled solutions, besides others.
With an aim to achieve ‘inclusive growth’, the Smart City Mission promotes integrated city planning, where the government’s policies such as Swachh Bharat Mission and Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation complement each other.