NEW DELHI: West Bengal has walked out of an NDA government pet project, declaring its inability to hand its share of Rs 500 crore over the next five years to develop New Town in Kolkata as a smart city.
The Kolkata suburb, developed as an IT hub with wide roads and modern houses during the leftist rule in the state, was among 33 urban centres selected this year for Narendra Modi government’s smart city programme.
The plan is to build 100 smart cities by 2022 complete with internet connectivity and quality infrastructure for modern living such as efficient waste management and public transport systems.
Each of these will be given `500 crore by the Centre over a five-year-period while the states will make a matching contribution.
But the Trinamool Congress government of chief minister Mamata Banerjee wrote last week to the Union urban development ministry, which is piloting the project, the decision to withdraw from the programme. West Bengal will be the first state to walk out of the project that PM Modi launched last January. New Town was the lone pick from the state for the 201516 smart city programme.
“We have told the Union ministry that instead of using Rs 500 crore to develop one smart city, we will much rather use our share for developing many more cities in accordance with our requirement. The Centre can’t dictate how we should make our cities smart,” a Trinamool leader said. “We have proposed to develop 10 green cities, including Rajarhat, in the next five years that will be eco-friendly as well as smart, instead of just one city based on parameters fixed by the Centre.”
{{/usCountry}}“We have told the Union ministry that instead of using Rs 500 crore to develop one smart city, we will much rather use our share for developing many more cities in accordance with our requirement. The Centre can’t dictate how we should make our cities smart,” a Trinamool leader said. “We have proposed to develop 10 green cities, including Rajarhat, in the next five years that will be eco-friendly as well as smart, instead of just one city based on parameters fixed by the Centre.”
{{/usCountry}}West Bengal had nominated four cities — Kolkata, Bidhan Nagar, Haldia and New Town — under the scheme, of which only the last was selected. A senior ministry official confirmed the Trinamool government’s decision.