Smart Cities Mission

What is the Smart Cities Mission?

Smart Cities Mission is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, launched by the Prime Minister on 25 June 2015 alongside AMRUT and PMAY-Urban. It funded 100 selected cities to build core infrastructure, apply technology to city services, and demonstrate replicable models of urban development.

Smart Cities Mission is unusual among central schemes because cities, not individuals, were the beneficiaries. Selection happened through a competition called the Smart City Challenge, in which states first nominated cities and the shortlisted cities then submitted Smart City Proposals that were scored against each other.

Key objectives

• Provide core infrastructure, assured water and electricity supply, sanitation and solid waste management, efficient public transport, affordable housing, IT connectivity, e-governance, safety and health.
• Apply "smart solutions" so that infrastructure and services use data and technology rather than concrete alone.
• Create replicable models that other cities can copy, so the Mission acts as a lighthouse rather than covering every town.

Main features

• 100 cities selected through the Smart City Challenge, in rounds from January 2016 to June 2018.
• Rs 48,000 crore central outlay for the 100 cities, roughly Rs 500 crore per city over five years, released at about Rs 100 crore a year and matched equally by the state and the urban local body.
• Special Purpose Vehicles in every city, with 50:50 equity held by the state government and the urban local body, headed by a full-time CEO.
• Two strategic components in every Smart City Proposal: Area-Based Development and Pan-City Solutions.
• Mission period extended to 31 March 2025 to complete the balance projects.

What does Area-Based Development mean under the Smart Cities Mission?

Smart Cities Mission required each city to pick a compact area and transform it completely, using one of three models:

• Retrofitting: upgrading an existing built-up area of more than 500 acres with better infrastructure while keeping its current structures.
• Redevelopment; replacing the existing built-up environment in an area of more than 50 acres with a new layout and higher density.
• Greenfield development: planning a previously vacant area of more than 250 acres with affordable housing for the poor built in.

The second component, Pan-City Solutions, applies technology across the whole municipal area, for example, intelligent transport systems, smart water metering, or a city-wide surveillance and traffic management network.

Who is eligible for the Smart Cities Mission?

Cities could be selected if:

• The state government nominated them in the first stage of the Smart City Challenge, based on state-level scoring covering existing service levels, institutional capacity, past reform performance and financial health.
• The city submitted a Smart City Proposal with a defined area-based development plan, a pan-city solution, a financing plan and evidence of citizen consultation.
• The city committed to forming an SPV and to raising the matching share from the state, the ULB, convergence with other schemes, municipal bonds, loans and public-private partnership.

Who cannot apply:

• Individual citizens are not eligible for any grant, subsidy or house under the Smart Cities Mission. There is no citizen application form for money and anybody asking for a fee to "register you for the smart city scheme" is running a fraud.
• Cities outside the final list of 100 are not eligible for Mission funds, although many state governments ran parallel state smart city programmes.
• New city applications are no longer accepted because the Smart City Challenge closed in June 2018 and the Mission itself ended on 31 March 2025.

What documents are involved in the Smart Cities Mission?

How to apply for Smart Cities Mission opportunities

Individuals cannot apply for a benefit, but there are three real routes for citizens, graduates and businesses to engage with the Mission's institutions.

1. Open the official Mission portal at smartcities.gov.in and identify the Smart City SPV for your city from the city dashboard.
2. To apply as an intern, register on the TULIP portal, the Urban Learning Internship Program of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and AICTE, with your degree or provisional certificate, and apply to internships posted by smart cities and urban local bodies.
3. To bid as a contractor or technology vendor, register on your state eProcurement portal, then track tenders published by the city SPV and submit your bid with firm registration, GST and past-performance documents.
4. To participate as a resident, attend the area sabha or ward committee meetings of your city and use the MyGov consultations that cities run for Smart City projects.
5. To use the services, download your city's citizen app linked from the Smart City SPV site — most cities route grievance, parking, transport and waste-collection complaints through the ICCC.

How much did the Smart Cities Mission spend and deliver?

According to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, the Government of India had released Rs 46,585 crore, about 97 per cent of the Rs 48,000 crore allocation: to the 100 cities by the close of the Mission period.

• 8,063 projects were taken up in the 100 cities.
• 7,504 projects worth about Rs 1,50,306 crore were complete as of March 2025, with 559 projects worth about Rs 14,239 crore still ongoing.
• 100 Integrated Command and Control Centres are operational, one in every selected city.
• 18 of the 100 cities had finished all their projects by March 2025, including Agra, Varanasi, Madurai, Coimbatore, Udaipur, Pune, Surat and Vadodara.
• By August 2025, the government reported that about 95 per cent of the sanctioned projects had been completed.

What happened when the Smart Cities Mission ended?

Smart Cities Mission concluded on 31 March 2025. The assets it created, ICCCs, smart roads, solar rooftops, sewerage networks, e-buses, smart classrooms and public bicycle systems; were handed to the urban local body or continue under the city SPV. Recurring costs of operating these assets, particularly the ICCCs and surveillance networks, now sit on municipal budgets, which is the main sustainability question raised in independent reviews of the Mission.

Common criticisms and things to check locally

• Uneven completion. Only 18 cities finished everything by March 2025; the rest closed with ongoing works transferred to the ULB.
• Area-Based Development covered a small footprint of each city, so benefits were geographically concentrated.
• Operating expenditure for ICCCs and smart infrastructure was not funded by the Mission beyond the project period.
• SPV accountability sits outside the elected municipal council, which several city governments have flagged.

If you want to know what was actually built in your city, the city SPV publishes a project-wise list and status; the Mission portal also hosts city dashboards.

Help and contacts

• Smart Cities Mission Division, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Nirman Bhawan, Maulana Azad Road, New Delhi 110011 to Director (Smart Cities), 011-23062194
• Mission portal: smartcities.gov.in
• TULIP internships: the Urban Learning Internship Program portal
• Your city Smart City SPV, for project, tender and grievance queries

Note on sources. The Smart Cities Mission portal was not reachable from this network at the time of checking, so the figures above were verified against Press Information Bureau releases of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, including the "10 Years of Smart Cities Mission" note and the Mission extension release.