Centre, states to meet on smart cities Friday: Naidu

Chennai, Jan 29 (IANS) The central government will give a shape to its Smart Cities programme after a two-day meeting of secretaries of state governments and union territories on this issue in New Delhi from Friday, said union Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu.

"A final shape to the smart cities concept would be given at the meeting. Each state will have three smart cities, excluding the state capital," said Naidu at a conference on Tamil Nadu Smart Cities organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here Thursday.

The central government has plans to develop 100 smart cities.

According to Naidu, the smart cities would be developed through public-private participation (PPP) model. The central government, state government and the urban local bodies would collaborate in developing the smart cities.

At the two-day meeting with the secretaries, issues like the kind of support, hand holding that would be needed, ensuring citizen's participation in urban governance, reforms needed to be undertaken and other related matters would be deliberated, he said.

Naidu said countries like the US, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Sweden and Germany have showed interest in building smart cities in India.

He said the central government is also mulling to announce a "city challenge" initiative where aspiring cities would be measured on defined parameters.