Panel slams Central Government for slow implementation of Smart cities Mission

NEW DELHI: The slow progress of Smart Cities Mission has come under severe criticism from the Standing Committee on Urban Development. The panel has noticed that of all the urban missions, Smart Cities has the lowest utilization of Rs 182 crore out of the total Rs 9,943 crore.

The Committee said that the flagship programmes which are launched for transforming the lives of the people in the country, are sidelined.

According to report, as against the promised Mission support of Rs 48,000 crore for 100 cities for five years, the total budget estimate until now is nearly about Rs 15,000 crore, while Rs 10,094 crore is the revised estimate of last three years.

The committee said that the ground reality of work done under Smart Cities Mission is different than claimed by the Government. The panel found that in spite of available mechanism, complaints about poor work from local MPs under the mission were still coming.

The panel expressed its concern about the mission that even after three years of its launch, most of the identified projects are still at the stage of preparation of detailed project report.

“The Committee are concerned to find that as against a total fund allocation of Rs 48548.64 crore for the six flagship programmes viz. AMRUT, HRIDAY, Smart Cities, Swachh Bharat, National Urban Livelihood Mission and PM Awas Yojna, the actual utilisation is only 21.6%, ie. Rs 7850.72 crore out of Rs 36194.39 crore released since the launch of these schemes”, the Committee said.