NEW DELHI:  The government today named 20 cities that will soon get a 50,800 crore or 7.5 billion dollar makeover to turn them into 'Smart Cities' with facilities and infrastructure comparable to Europe. The cities will be given funds to solve problems from power cuts to poor sanitation to traffic.

The cities chosen are Bhubaneswar, Pune, Jaipur, Surat, Kochi, Ahmedabad, Jabalpur, Visakhapatnam, Solapur, Davangere, Indore, the New Delhi area, Coimbatore, Kakinada, Belgaum, Udaipur, Guwahati, Chennai, Ludhiana and Bhopal.

Thirteen of them are in the WHO list of the 20 most polluted cities in the world.

The 20 names were picked from a list of 97 cities submitted by states during a competition last year. The choices were judged on service levels, infrastructure and track record. More than 2.5 million citizens weighed in on which urban problems needed to be solved first.