The Jharkhand government has identified 340 acres of land in the Heavy Engineering Corporation (HEC) campus in Ranchi to build its Smart City, urban development department secretary Arun Kumar Singh said on Sunday.

Analysts have lauded this as they believe that the conversion of such land in a scientific way would enhance the quality of life of people and bring out awareness that Smart City is a people friendly project.

Ranchi is among the 98 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.

Now, all cities will have to submit their final Smart City Proposal (SCP) that should include the area to be developed as Smart City. The SCP will be evaluated based on set criteria in the second stage of ‘City Challenge’ competition for identifying the top scoring 20 cities for financing during the current financial year.

Such carefully planned steps in urban renewal will not result in thoughts that Smart City would replace people and push them out of transparent and efficient governance.