Under Atal Mission for Rejuvenating and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), 225 of 476 cities identified so far are also from these eight states.
Eight states ruled by Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies take away over 60 per cent of smart city share. Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Haryana get the largest pie along with Punjab and Andhra Pradesh, ruled by the allies of BJP.
Under Atal Mission for Rejuvenating and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), 225 of 476 cities identified so far are also from these eight states.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's poll promise of giving smart cities to India, was formally launched on Thursday. It was also the formal end of Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JnNurm), and launch of Atal Mission for Rejuvenating and Urban Transformation (AMRUT).
Uttar Pradesh where BJP's stakes are high in the assembly election due in 2017, 54 cities are earmarked for AMRUT followed by Maharashtra with 37, Madhya Pradesh 33 Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh 31 each.
Uttar Pradesh also gets the highest number of smart cities followed by Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. Uttar Pradesh gets 13 cities, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra 12 and 10 respectively. Prime Minister's home state gets only six smart cities and 31 cities for AMRUT.
The ministry however brushed aside any political interest while awarding the project. "The numbers have been allotted on the basis of size and population of each state," said a senior officer of the ministry.
Unlike JnNURM which was restricted to developing urban city infrastructure and transport network, AMRUT will also focus on hill cities, island cities, towns of tourism importance, and towns on the main stem of Ganga. Cities with population less than one lakh will also benefit from of the scheme.
While the government will be partly funding the project, the Centre released its guidelines and parameters for the states to identify and select the cities for the two schemes.
The Congress which had crafted the JnNURM feels that AMRUT is merely its repackaging with a miss of the housing aspect. "All the housing schemes of the UPA has been repackaged into one," said former UD Minister Ajay Maken.
Maken also added that by creating more green field cities under the smart city scheme, the government is ignoring the interest of the slum dweller and urban poor. "60 percent of the urban poor lives in slums.
Absence of specific schemes, lack of funding and focus on creating new cities will ignore the interest of the urban poor," Maken added.
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