It is indeed a disappointing fact that the Orange City once regarded as the smartest city in the state has dipped to 44th place in the Smart City rankings. Union Ministry of Urban Affairs and Housing released the ranking on January 15 wherein all cities in the country were ranked after they were surveyed on various counts. The dip in city ranking is an indication of need for major overhaul in terms of ease of living for the citizens. Nagpur city topped 100 cities in March 2020.Afterwards, Nagpur remained in second place for a long time.
However, Nagpur reached on 28 rank in May 2020.In January 2021, and it reached on 44th rank in the list of Smart Cities. For determining the ranking of the city various factors like expenditure incurred on smart city projects, speed of projects, work order, tender process, cost of funds received, performance of civic body etc. are taken into consideration. At present, Pune city is number one in the state and number 18 in the country. Nashik on 20 rank, Thane at 23rd position, Pimpri Chinchwad at 41.
The tardy implementation of big tickets civic projects and continuous pushing of deadlines due to lack of coordination between administration and rulers, poor financial resources and other factors have contributed in pulling down city’s performance index. Previously city was ranked quite higher; it was at no. 1 position in month of March, just during the start of lockdown during last year. The development projects in smart city area have failed to take off and even now basic amenities have not been rolled out. Cities were ranked based on parameters off allocated tenders, work orders issued, convergence of projects, and progress of works, funds transfer to SPV, fund spent and regular meeting of citizen’s advisory committee.
