Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is critical at the Narendra Modi government for selecting Hyderabad city under Smart City mission saying that the city is already more than a ‘smart city’ and has developed as an A-1 city on par with Mumbai over the years. He even felt that giving a ‘smart city’ tag to Hyderabad is nothing but to belittle the city’s importance.

In a letter to Union Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu, Rao said Hyderabad has an annual budget of Rs 55 billion. “Under Smart City status, the Centre allots just Rs 1billion for development. For a city which already has a budget of Rs 55 billion, in what way Rs 1 billion would be sufficient?” he asked.

He told Naidu to treat Hyderabad as a special city and allot special funds for its development to provide world-class infrastructure facilities to meet future demands. The Chief Minister asked him to remove Hyderabad from Smart City list and instead replace it with Karimnagar.

He said, “The Centre should come out with special schemes to develop metro cities like Hyderabad instead of clubbing metro cities with Smart City project. Hyderabad needs Rs 12.70 billion per year towards operation and maintenance costs alone. In this scenario, meagre Rs 1billion under Smart City scheme would be insufficient to improve Hyderabad’s facilities, Rao said.