The following story has been authored by Jayanta Chakraborty and Karishma Gupta, Economic Analysts at Arthashastra Intelligence

National Smart Cities Mission is an urban renewal and retrofitting program by government of India with the mission to develop smart cities across the country, making them citizen friendly and sustainable. GOI has been releasing funds since 2016, total funds release can be seen by Heat map where it can be seen Maharashtra, Madhya and Tamil Nadu have received highest funding along with this  GOI announces a merit list of top 20 states taking in views from a panel of experts from London School of economics  and World bank etc. Although Tamil Nadu has received 920 cr in total but still could not make to top 5 list  but states like Odisha which have received only 386 cr has stood at first place same thing goes for Kerala who has just received 214 cr has judicially used funds and have made to rank 5.