Coimbatore: The city corporation has fared poorly at the India Smart Cities Awards Contest 2020, not fetching even a single award.The awards were announced during an online event that the housing and urban affairs ministry organized on Friday to commemorate the sixth year of smart cities mission, Atal mission for urban rejuvenation and urban transformation and Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-urban.The awards were given to the best performers across a gamut of themes like social aspects, governance, culture, urban environment, sanitation, economy, built environment, water, urban mobility, sustainable business model of the integrated command and control centre, and innovation in Covid management.Chennai and Erode corporations have bagged two awards each, while Tirunelveli corporation has won one.
Tamil Nadu was placed third among the states in the smart cities ranking.
Sampath Kumar Subramaniam, state coordinator, Smart Cities Mission Management Unit, government of India, said the city corporation’s performance in implementing smart city projects was good, despite the lag that was caused by the pandemic situation.“Under the mission, the corporation has been implementing bigger projects with a long implementation period.
The Union government had, however, considered the number of projects that were completed last year.
Hence, the number of projects that the corporation had completed during the period was fewer,” he said.
He said the city corporation had to face tough contest this time as it was pitted against the cities that were selected in the first round of the smart cities mission.
“How efficient the corporations were in entering the data also mattered in the contest.”Pointing out that Tamil Nadu had won the state award, he said it meant all the smart cities in the state were doing well and their contributions were also taken into account.
“Both the Union and the state government’s fund allocation and the fund utilization rate is good in the state.”Expressing disappointment, R Ravindran, secretary, Residents Awareness Association of Coimbatore, said, “The state of the city corporation, which was so proactive and managed to get selected in the first round of smart cities mission, is a bit disappointing.
But I am confident that the corporation will top the smart cities again.”
Corporation fails to make a mark in smart cities awards contest
