Indore has been adjudged the best Smart City while Madhya Pradesh has been chosen as the top State for exemplary performance in the Smart Cities Mission.
Surat and Agra are the second and third-place winners among cities, while Tamil Nadu is the second in the State category followed by Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh in the India Smart Cities Award Contest (ISAC), 2022.
The award for the best Union Territory has gone to Chandigarh.
The ISAC awards for 2022, organised under the Smart Cities Mission, by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs were announced on Friday.
President Droupadi Murmu will give away the awards on September 27 at Indore in Madhya Pradesh.
This is the fourth edition of the ISAC awards. In the past, the ISAC witnessed three editions in 2018, 2019 and 2020. The 2022 edition was launched in April last year during the ‘Smart Cities-Smart Urbanization’ event in Surat.
There were no awards in 2021 because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The ISAC recognises and rewards cities, projects and innovative ideas that are promoting sustainable development across the 100 smart cities, as well as stimulating inclusive, equitable, safe, healthy and collaborative cities leading to a better quality of life for all.
The ISAC 2022 award had a two-stage submission process consisting of ‘Qualifying Stage’, which involved overall assessment of the city’s performance, and the ‘Proposal Stage’ which required the smart cities to submit their nominations for six award categories.
A total of 845 nominations were received for ISAC 2022 from 80 qualifying smart cities out of which 66 final winners have been identified in various categories.
Smart Cities Mission launched on June 25, 2015, aims to provide core infrastructure, clean and sustainable environment and a decent quality of life to their citizens through the application of “smart solutions”.
Of the total proposed projects under SCM, 6,041 (76%) of the projects worth ₹1,10,635 crore have been completed and the remaining 1,894 projects worth ₹60,095 crore will be completed by June 30, 2024, an official statement said.
The 100 Smart Cities have taken up projects across diverse sectors related to mobility, energy, water, sanitation, solid waste management, vibrant public spaces, social infrastructure, smart governance, etc.
