GUWAHATI: The physical progress of the Smart City Mission implementation in Guwahati is considered as ‘worst’ till December 2023 as the city is listed in the list of 15 worst performing cities across India. Guwahati has ranked 96th in the performance list among 100 smart cities in the country.
According to the 21st report by the standing committee on Housing and Urban Affairs, an evaluation of Smart City Mission, presented in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, among the 15 worst performing smart cities, 8 cities are from the northeast as of December 2023.
According to data on city-wise physical progress of the mission in North-eastern states as of December 2023 mentioned in the report, Guwahati took up 22 projects worth ₹945 crore, out of which 11 projects are in the work order stage worth ₹842 crore and 11 projects are completed worth ₹103 crore. According to the report till December, 50% of undertaken projects were completed.
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“In Shillong and Gangtok, only 04 and 06 projects are complete while works on 17 and 38 projects are still going on respectively. Overall, the performance of the scheme in North-Eastern States appears to be dismal despite altered funding pattern,” the standing committee report said.
The committee observed that there is a contrasting difference in the performance of the Smart cities. While cities like Surat, Agra, Ahmedabad, Bhopal Varanasi, Madurai, Ranchi, Pune, Indore, etc. are some of the best 25 performing cities, there has been slow progress of the Mission in many cities, including those in North-Eastern States despite altered funding pattern.
As of December 2023, in comparison with an average of 6% incomplete projects in the rank-wise 20 best-performing cities, almost 47% of projects are at the work order stage in the 20 cities at the bottom of the ranking.
Other worst-performing cities other than Guwahati in the Northeast are Kohima, Namchi, Pasighat, Agartala, Itanagar, Shillong, Aizawl, Gangtok and Imphal.
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Meanwhile, a senior official of Guwahati Smart City Ltd has denied the information provided by the standing committee and claimed that 18 projects under smart city projects in Guwahati are already completed and the rest of the projects will be completed soon.
In August 2023 GPlus reported that Guwahati has lost out on the Indian Smart City Award (ISCA) announced by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) under the Smart Cities Mission (SCM).
Guwahati had contested in the urban mobility category but was not successful. The city was unable to contest in other categories as it had not implemented the projects for those categories.
According to the Niti Aayog report, Guwahati's poor performance is not an isolated case. Several other cities in the Northeast region, including Shillong, Aizawl, and Imphal, have also struggled to make significant progress on their respective smart city projects. Additionally, cities like Amaravati, Diu, Greater Warangal, Kavaratti, Port Blair, and Puducherry also find themselves on the list of worst-performing cities.
Guwahati was selected as one of the first 20 smart cities in the country, a part of the ambitious Smart City initiative launched by the government to uplift the living standards in 100 cities and towns across the nation.
Key projects under the Guwahati Smart City initiative include the Brahmaputra River Front Development, Streetscape in Kalakshetra, Light and Sound Show in Gandhi Mandap, Integrated Traffic Management System, Light and Sound Show in Kalakshetra, Gandhi Mandap Museum Renovation, and procurement of electric buses (EVs) and compressed natural gas (CNG) buses. Despite slow progress, officials from the Guwahati Smart City Limited (GSCL) remain optimistic that the momentum of work has picked up since 2021, and significant changes will be witnessed in the city soon.
