This story is from January 25, 2020

Barely a city now, Amaravati tops smart city spend

Of the 100 smart cities being developed across the country, guess which city has utilised the maximum amount of money granted to it under the Smart Cities Mission in 2019? As fate would have it, it is Amaravati.
Barely a city now, Amaravati tops smart city spend
Representative image
VISAKHAPATNAM: Of the 100 smart cities being developed across the country, guess which city has utilised the maximum amount of money granted to it under the Smart Cities Mission in 2019? As fate would have it, it is Amaravati.
Amid turmoil over the YSRCP government’s three capitals plan, statistics presented during the two-day smart cities conference here showed that Amaravati has been ranked first after the authorities submitted utilisation certificates for ?473 crore out of the sanctioned ?496 crore.

1

Despite the high utilisation, Amaravati’s overall rank witnessed a decline and slipped from the 10th place in February 2019 to 19th in January 2020. With the new Jaganmohan Reddy government coming to power last year and clearing stating that it will not back the Amaravati as capital plan, work on its development has come to a virtual standstill.
Amaravati was selected as a smart city in June 2017. The Amaravati Smart and Sustainable City Corporation Limited (ASSCCL) was set up by the then TDP government that year. Some 20 projects, worth ?2,046 crore, were being funded through ASSCCL.
1

14 projects amounting to over Rs 1 crore were undertaken by CRDA
The projects included command and control centre, smart metering system, district cooling under PPP, sports hub, solid waste management, central park and others. Of the 20 projects, 14 projects amounting to Rs 1,744 crore were primarily undertaken by the Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) which the YSRCP government plans to scrap.
Interestingly, Andhra Pradesh has topped the charts among big states in utilisation of funds released by the mission. The four smart cities in the state — Visakhapatnam, Amaravati, Kakinada and Tirupati — utilised ?1,236 crore out of the ?1,383 crore released by the mission. The other four big states behind AP are Gujarat, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh. While Amaravati has been ranked first, Kakinada has been ranked sixth. Visakhapatnam, which is proposed to become AP’s new executive capital, is ninth in the country utilising ?279 crore out of the ?299 crore released so far. Visakhapatnam and Kakinada made it to the league of 20 smart cities selected in the first round in January 2016. Tirupati and Amaravati were selected in the third round in June 2017. The other seven cities in top 10 in utilising SCM funds are Bhopal, Surat, Bhubaneswar, Indore, Jabalpur, Ahmedabad and Ranchi. All the 100 cities selected under the mission have proposed to execute 5,151 projects worth ?2,05,018 crore in five years from their respective dates of selection. However, stagnant projects are a concern as tenders of 286 projects worth ?22,498 crore are pending over the last one year, while 532 projects worth ?33,040 crore are pending for the last six months.
author
About the Author
Umamaheswara Rao

J Umamaheswara Rao is a special correspondent, at the Times of India-Visakhapatnam. He covers developments related to the GVMC/VMRDA, education, health, science, IT, tech and startups, research studies, and data-related stories. He holds two postgraduate degrees, one in journalism and mass communication and another one in business administration, apart from completing several short-term courses and fellowships.

End of Article
FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA