Uploaded on 2020-05-02 by GUMMANURU NEELAVATHI

National Smart Cities Mission is an urban renewal and retrofitting program by the Government of India with the mission to develop smart cities across the country, making them citizen friendly and sustainable.[1] The Union Ministry of Urban Development is responsible for implementing the mission in collaboration with the state governments of the respective cities. The mission initially included only 100 cities, with the deadline for completion of the projects set between 2019 and 2023. However, the government later announced to expand the mission to 4,000 cities across India.[2] On 7 September 2019, the 10,000-acre Aurangabad Industrial City (AURIC) in Aurangabad, Maharashtra was inaugurated as the first greenfield industrial smart city of India.[3][4]Smart Cities Mission envisions developing an area within the cities in the country as model areas based on an area development plan, which is expected to have a rub-off effect on other parts of the city,[5] and nearby cities and towns.[6] Cities will be selected based on the Smart Cities challenge, where cities will compete in a countrywide competition to obtain the benefits from this mission. As of January 2018, 99 cities have been selected to be upgraded as part of the Smart Cities Mission after they defeated other