New Delhi, May 25 (KNN) The Union government, on Tuesday, announced 13 more cities that will be developed under the Centre’s Smart City Mission. These cities were chosen from the 23 that failed to get representation in the first round of a competition held in January, and participated in the “fast-track competition.”

Apart from Lucknow which topped the list, followed by Warangal in Telangana and Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh, the other cities on the list are Chandigarh, Raipur (Chhattisgarh), New Town Kolkata, Bhagalpur (Bihar), Panaji (Goa), Port Blair (Andaman and Nicobar Islands), Imphal (Manipur), Ranchi (Jharkhand), Agartala (Tripura) and Faridabad (Haryana).

KNN spoke to the MSME associations in Chandigarh and Faridabad, which have been included in the list of Smart City Mission.

Rakesh Aggarwal, General Secretary, Chamber of Chandigarh Industries seemed quite disappointed with the government’s attitude towards the small industries.

He said, “The government is only focusing on expanding and improving infrastructure of the residential and commercial properties here. They are not at all focussing on the manufacturing units especially the MSMEs.”

“MSMEs won’t get benefited here. People are discouraging the MSMEs here; they don’t want industries to be here. Smart Cities or any other initiative would be successful only if the industries grow. But here, the MSMEs are finished. The government wants the MSMEs to move out of the city rather manufacturing activity and get into trading or services,” Aggarwal added.

Rajeev Chawla, Immediate Past President, Faridabad Small Industries Association said, “Our inclusion in the smart city list denotes to important thing, one is the great potential that the city has and second is the planning which plans the road map the plan ahead the Government and the agencies have submitted based upon which we have been selected as a smart city.”

“Now I think greatest opportunity to rebuild the reputation of Faridabad which has always being in the top five Industrials estate and Industrial clusters in the country once upon a time.  Over the last few years, there are many industrial clusters which have overtaken the Faridabad. I think this can be a moment for the revival of Faridabad. It can rebuild its infrastructure, integrate the masses and in times to come this can bring huge investments in Faridabad,” said the entrepreneur.

Chawla further said, “Fortunately, we have a new industrial model township which is ready and where almost 100 new industries are under construction. There is an opportunity for 300 more industries to set up their businesses there. So smart city in Faridabad would be new investments are coming in. new employment opportunities. The Make in India movement happening in the industrial cluster of Faridabad. All this denotes that Faridabad can if it actually live the plans then it can be symbol of Make in India movement. This is the biggest thing I see it as the smart city mission.” (KNN Bureau)