Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das today thanked the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Urban Development Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu for incorporating Ranchi as one of 13 cities of the country for the Smart City project.

Das said:”I am sure,Ranchi will develop as a smart city.”

The Jharkhand government has identified land in the Heavy Engineering Corporation (HEC) campus in Ranchi to build its smart city, urban development department secretary Arun Kumar Singh said on Tuesday.

Ranchi is among 13 cities of the country which have qualified for the smart city project. The said land is located in Dhurwa area of the state capital, adjoining the Jharkhand secretariat-called Project Bhawan.

Earlier,all these cities had submitted their final Smart City Proposal (SCP) that included the area to be developed as smart city. The SCP was reportedly evaluated based on set criteria in the second stage of “City Challenge” competition for identifying the top scoring cities for financing during the current financial year.

The Centre and the state will jointly contribute Rs 1,000 crore during next five years to build the city. Experts, however, said that a smart city cannot be developed on Greenfield at Rs 1,000 crore.