Ranchi, Feb. 2: With the state government notifying the creation of a municipal corporation for Dhanbad, which began functioning from today, sources said Jamshedpur and three other cities were the next on its agenda.

When contacted by The Telegraph, urban development department officials declined to confirm if Jamshedpur was next on their list, but asserted that the state government was ?committed to create municipal corporations? for the five major cities of Jamshedpur, Dhanbad, Hazaribagh, Bokaro and Deoghar.

?A corporation was put in place in Dhanbad today. Notifications for the others would follow one by one,? the officials said.

Urban development minister Raghubar Das said that during the winter session of the state Assembly, the government had made a commitment to create municipal corporations for the five major cities of Jharkhand to ensure ?planned development?.

Apart from this, Das said, the three cities of the state ? Ranchi, Jamshedpur and Dhanbad ? have been declared as ?millennium cities?.

These three form part of the 63 cities, with population of 10 lakh or more, selected from all over the country to be developed as millennium cities, which will be equipped with state-of-the-art infrastructure support systems.

Das added that the costs involved in building infrastructure would be shared between the Centre and the state.

Saryu cry for Bokaro

The echoes of granting industrial town status to Bokaro reverberated today, when BJP legislator and vice-chairman of state Planning Commission, Saryu Rai pledged his support for the cause.

The leader advocated for industrial town status to Bokaro, a proposal which was earlier approved by the state government.