SHIMLA: With Shimla finally included in the list of cities in the country to be developed as Smart Cities, political leaders are wasting no time outscoring each other to take credit for it. The Himachal Pradesh capital joins Dharamshala from the state in the list of Smart Cities.On Friday, Union ministry of urban development announced the list of 30 more cities in Union government's "100 Smart Cities Mission" taking the total number to 90 in which Shimla ranks 15th. A proposal of Rs 2,906 crore was submitted to the ministry for Shimla's overall development including traffic management, tourism and others.While former mayor from CPI (M) Sanjay Chauhan congratulated Shimla residents, BJP MP from Hamirpur Anurag Thakur harped on his party's efforts to ensure Shimla finally made the cut. "To make Shimla a smart city , we (BJP) had strongly put our case before the union government while Congress and CPI (M) were unable to even place correct data," he alleged while thanking Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu for inclduing Shimla.When Dharamshala was included both CPI(M) and BJP questioned the Union government's decision. Chauhan in December, 2015 had filed a petition in the Himachal Pradesh high court challenging Shimla's exclusion and inclusion of Dharamshala.Meanwhile, the Niti Aayog on Friday told the Himachal Pradesh government to prepare a plan to double the income of its farmers in five years even as the Virbhadra Singh-led government blamed the think tank for a drastic decline in Central funding to the state.Increasing the income of farmers is our major focus, said Niti Aayog member Ramesh Chand while interacting with senior state ministers and officials of the state government.

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