The Government of India had launched its flagship programme, the Smart Cities Mission encouraging cities to compete and participate in the Smart Cities Challenge which was rigorously evaluated by a Panel of Experts, which included institutions such as World Bank, Agent Development bank, London School of Economics and National Institute for Urban Affairs etc. The overall cap for the first round of selection was for 20 Cities which are been selected on merit on the basis of scoring as per the Smart Cities Mission Guidelines.

In order to spread the message of Urban Transformation in all parts of the Country, the Ministry of Urban Development, GOI has emphasized on providing an opportunity to all the States/UTs to upgrade their proposals by a special fast track mechanism in which 23 cities from their respective States/UTs in which none of the potential Cities were able to come in the list of top 20 Smart Cities.

The City of Panaji had scored 52.99% ranking 32 in the overall listing and ranking no.5 in the list of Cities to be upgraded in fast track as was published by the Ministry of Urban Development. It might also be noted that the cut off for winning City proposal was 55.47% which was achieved by Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, thereby Panaji having missed to be in the first list of winning Cities by a meager 2.48%.

GSIDC as the Programme Management Unit for Smart City along with the Corporation of City of Panaji (CCP) is actively working towards to ensure compliance to achieve the benchmark set by the winning cities based on the observations made by the Panel of Experts on how improvements can be made in each proposal. The revised proposals of the fast track Cities will be evaluated again by the Panel of Experts and those which achieve such benchmark will become eligible for inclusion in the Smart Cities list and for funding on accelerated basis in the financial year 2016-2017. It is the endeavour of the City to improve & revise the proposal keeping in view the comments of the Expert Panel that have been shared by the Ministry of Urban Development thereby, the Smart City proposal and the expert comments are being made public to welcome suggestions from the Citizens by 20th March 2016. After compilation of all the suggestions from the Citizens the City will welcome all Citizens to share their views on the revised Smart City proposal on 31/3/2016. You may share your views, suggestions and comments using the following mediums:

1) https://www.facebook.com/imaginepanaji
2) Smart City website: http://imaginepanaji.com and also through drop boxes being placed at EDC ltd., Panaji and the Corporation of the City of Panaji.

Click here to read the Panaji Smart City Proposal

Click here to read Comments from MoUD

Let us work towards making Panaji a Smart City.