New Delhi, Aug 27(PTI): The Centre on Thursday named 98 cities for the Narendra Modi government's flagship Smart Cities project, with Uttar Pradesh bagging the most.

The names of the cities selected for the Rs 48,000 crore Smart Cities project was released by the Centre pending a nomination each from Uttar Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir.

West Bengal has got four: New Town Kolkata, Bidhannagar, Durgapur and Haldia. (Full list: http://bit.ly/1NWldlR)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched the ambitious project with announcement of criteria and guidelines for 100 Smart Cities to be selected through city challenge competition. The smart cities are supposed to be ready by 2022.

While Jammu & Kashmir has to nominate one city, UP has got slots for 13 cities to be proposed as Smart City based on the urban population and number of notified cities.

“The Government of Jammu & Kashmir sought more time to firm up their choice. More information is sought from the Uttar Pradesh government about the 13th smart city that is yet to be announced,” Urban Development Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu said here after releasing the list here.

According to ministry sources, Jammu & Kashmir wants both Jammu and Srinagar to be developed as Smart Cities though the state has got only one slot in the project.

Meerut and Rae Bareli have got equal points for the 13th slot in the city challenge competition in UP so now the state has to decide whom it wants to nominate, sources added.

Lucknow, Varanasi, Agra, Bareilly, Aligarh, Jhansi, Sharanpur are among 12 cities selected in UP for the Smart City project.

However, Patna and Bangalore and Mumbai are not in the list.

”It is the states which has sent the names of the cities to be included in the project. Names of Patna and Bangalore were not proposed by their respective states. As far as Mumbai is concerned, Maharashtra has proposed Mavi Mumbai for that purpose,” Naidu said.

While UP has maximum of 13 cities, followed by 12 by Tamil Nadu and 10 by Maharashtra to be developed as Smart Cities, Madhya Pradesh has seven cities in the project.

Karnataka and Gujarat have six cities each while Bihar and Andhra has three each and rest of the states have two and one cities respectively in the project.

All Union Territories, including Delhi, have found place in the list.

Moradabad, Solapur, Amritsar, Rourkela, Durgapur and Ajmer also figure in the list of 98 cities.

The next stage is the choosing 20 cities in the first lot by end of the year and the next two years 40 cities each will be selected for receiving Central funding of Rs 500 crore spread over five years.

Naidu said “The first stage of competition was entirely conducted by the States and UTs only with little role for the Union Urban Development Ministry.”

Centre will release Rs 2 crore for each of the 98 cities in the next couple of days for preparation of Smart City plans.

Our ministry has drawn up region wise panels of reputed agencies for assisting the cities to prepare Smart City plans, he said.

For the selection of 20 cities, the broad criteria will be city vision and strategy, cost effectiveness, credibility of implementation and innovation.

Naidu said those cities not selected in the first round can again participate in the second and third round by improving their performances.