Smart Cities Mission: UPSC Daily Important Topic | 5 May 2023

Smart Cities Mission

•It is an initiative of the MoHUA launched as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme on June 25, 2015.

•To promote cities that provide core infrastructure, and a clean and sustainable environment, 100 cities (to be developed as Smart Cities) have been selected through a two-stage competition (from January 2016 to June 2018).

•66 of the cities are small (less than 1 million population) and are implementing two-thirds of the projects.

It aims to:

•Drive economic growth through comprehensive work on social, economic, physical and institutional pillars of the city and

Improve the quality of life through smart solutions.

•Focus on sustainable and inclusive development by the creation of replicable models which act as lighthouses to other aspiring cities.