Budget 2014: Rs. 7,060 crore set aside for PM’s ‘smart cities’ dream

In the Narendra Modi-led government’s maiden budget, finance minister Arun Jaitley has announced that they will spend Rs.7,060 crore to turn into reality the Prime Minister’s dream of building 100 smart cities in the country.

Jaitley said that Modi “has a vision of developing 100 smart cities as satellite towns of larger cities and by modernizing the existing mid-sized cities.”

“To provide the necessary focus to this critical activity, I have provided a sum of Rs.7,060 crore in the current fiscal,” Jaitley said.

“Unless new cities are developed to accommodate the burgeoning number of people, the existing cities would soon become unliveable,” the minister added.

Creating 100 smart cities was one of the poll promises made by the Bharatiya Janata Party before coming to power on May 16.

IANS