Cities to vie for ‘beauty queen’ crown

NEW DELHI: The Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry has launched a ‘City Beauty Competition’ that aims to encourage and recognise transformational efforts made by cities and wards to create beautiful, innovative and inclusive public spaces.

In a statement on Thursday, the ministry said under this competition, wards and public spaces in cities would be judged on five broad pillars — accessibility, amenities, activities, aesthetics and ecology. The last date for participating in the competition is July 15.

The ministry said the competition provides a unique opportunity to wards and cities to showcase their interventions towards creating beautiful public spaces. It would also promote heritage and culture, sustainable communities and ecological conservation and would also encourage peer learning among states and cities.

“While selected wards would be felicitated at the city and state levels, the top most beautiful public spaces in the cities under four categories viz. waterfronts, green spaces, tourist/heritage spaces and market/commercial places would first be felicitated at the state level and the short-listed entries would thereafter be considered for national level awards,” the ministry said.

It launched a portal https://citybeautycompetition.in on Wednesday for urban local bodies to submit documents, including photographs, videos, presentations and self-reported baseline information to contest.