The nationwide Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav (AKAM) celebrations, the center's smart cities mission launches a smart cities and Academia Towards Action & Research (SAAR) program. It is an initiative jointly that has been launched by the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs- MoHUA, the National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA), and major Indian Academic Institutions in the country. Under this program, 15 of the country’s premier architecture and planning institutes will work with the Smart Cities for documenting the landmark projects that have been taken over by the Smart Cities Mission. The documents will be capturing learnings from the finest practices, providing students with various opportunities for engagement on urban development projects, and enabling the flow of real-time information between urban practitioners and academia. Urban projects of the Smart Cities Mission are lighthouse projects for several aspiring cities. Since 2015, when the mission started 100 Smart Cities are developing 5,151 projects having an investment worth Rs 2,05,018 crore. Under SAAR, the initial activity that has been envisaged is preparing a compendium of 75 landmark urban projects across the country into 47 smart cities. These projects are innovative and multi-sectoral. They have also been implemented in various geographies. The program also marks India’s 75th independence anniversary. The idea will display India's best efforts and on-ground achievements. The compendium will be acting as an initial point of reference for future research in this field. The cities include Agra, Ajmer, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Dharamshala, Faridabad, Jaipur, Jammu, Kanpur, Saharanpur, Shimla, Srinagar, Belgavi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Coimbatore, Erode, Kakinada, Kochi, Manguluru, Shivamogga, Thanjavur, Thiruchirapalli, Thiruvananthapuram, Tumakuru, Ahmedabad, Dahod, Nagpur, Nashik, Pune, Surat, Thane, Vadodara, Bhubaneswar, New Town Kolkata, Ranchi, Visakhapatnam, Bhopal, Gwalior, Indore, Raipur, Sagar, Ujjain, Jabalpur, Agartala, Gangtok, and Namchi. Image Source