New Delhi: A parliamentary panel has asked the Narendra Modi government to look into the slow pace of work under its flagship urban renewal initiative Smart Cities Mission (SCM), months before the programme’s deadline.
The House panel’s directions were mentioned in its report tabled in Parliament on 8 February. As of two months ago, 47 percent of projects sanctioned under the initiative were still in various stages of completion in 20 of the 100 smart cities. The mission’s deadline is 24 June this year.
According to the report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Housing and Urban Affairs, most of the cities where 47 percent or more of the projects were in the “work order stage” (in various stages of completion) are in the Himalayan and northeastern states. Among these were Atal Nagar (Chhattisgarh), Itanagar (Arunachal Pradesh), Gangtok (Sikkim), Kochi (Kerala), Imphal (Manipur), Shillong (Meghalaya), and Puducherry, the report showed.
Launched in June 2015, the Smart Cities Mission was aimed at helping 100 cities develop core infrastructure and a clean and sustainable environment to improve the quality of life of people through “smart solutions”. Under the mission, cities have taken up projects broadly under six categories: smart governance, mobility, economic infrastructure, energy, social infrastructure, vibrant urban spaces, and waste management.
As a rule, the Centre funds 50 percent of these projects while state and local governments contribute the rest. However, an exception to this funding pattern has been made for 13 Himalayan and northeastern states, for which the Centre was to contribute 90 percent of the total fund.
While the mission was initially conceived for five years, it was later extended till June 2024.
In its report, the panel headed by Janata Dal (United) MP Rajiv Ranjan Singh said the Centre should work out a plan to ensure that the work is completed before the mission ends.
According to the report, of the 7,970 projects worth Rs 1,70,400 crore taken up by 100 Smart Cities, 6,419 projects have been completed at an estimated cost of Rs 1,25,105 crore. Some 1,551 projects worth Rs 45,295 crore are at the “work order stage” till 1 December.
Analysing data provided by the ministry, the committee said that work was 80-100 percent complete in 57 cities. Of the 100 smart cities, only Madurai had completed all the projects by December 2023, the report said.
“The Committee further desire (sic) that a plan should be chalked out to strengthen the capabilities of the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) in small cities for those not reaping the benefit of the Mission so that projects under the SCM get completed,” the report said.
However, senior officials of the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, which oversees the mission, told ThePrint that work has now picked up pace.“We are continuously monitoring the work in these cities,” Kunal Kumar, MoHUA joint secretary and the director of the SCM, told ThePrint. “In the past 2-3 months, a lot of work has been completed. As of today, just 22 percent of the total work in smart cities is under various stages of implementation. By March this year, we plan to complete at least half of these and the remaining by June 2024.”
Explaining the slow pace of work in some cities, Kumar said not all cities had the capacity to plan large-scale projects. “In some cities, especially in the northeastern states and some Union territories, we faced few challenges. All this took some time. But now the work has picked up pace.”
According to senior ministry officials, some portion of the 400 out of 8,000 projects might go beyond June 2024, as these are “big projects involving multiple stakeholders”. Of the Rs 1.71 lakh crore, projects worth Rs 1.34 lakh crore (79 percent) had been completed by 10 February, another senior ministry official who didn’t want to be named said.
Also Read: Surat’s Swachh sweep—how diamond city went from plague to podium in 30 years
Ensure data privacy, house panel
Under the Smart Cities Mission, digital infrastructure such as the Integrated Command and Control Centers (ICCCs), the Adaptive Traffic Control System (ATCS), and the Red Light Violation Detection (RLVD) have been set up in 100 smart cities.
While ICCC is an integrated city monitoring system that uses equipment like CCTV cameras and emergency call box systems, the ATCS is a traffic management strategy that involves real-time changing of traffic lights to suit demand. An RLVD, meanwhile, is a surveillance system to monitor common traffic violations like jumping lights and speeding.
To protect the large data generated through the use of new technology, the committee recommended that a “robust system should be put in place to protect digital platforms from cyber attack and to ensure that sensitive public and private data is adequately protected and safeguarded”.
According to ministry officials, several measures have been taken to ensure data projects.
“By March, the ministry will come up with a set of recommendations for cities for the management of SPVs (Special Purpose Vehicles) and ICCCs. We have taken several key initiatives to ensure data protection. We have tied up with Standardisation Testing and Quality Certification under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to carry out cyber security audits of all ICCCs and digital infrastructure created under the SCM. Besides, a third party (Quality Council of India) has been appointed to assess the functioning of ICCCs on 10 different parameters.” Kumar said.
Standardisation Testing and Quality Certification is a government body that offers quality assurance standards to the IT and electronics sector and is responsible for maintaining e-governance standards in India. The Quality Council of India, meanwhile, is an autonomous body established under the private-public-partnership model to monitor and improve quality in various departments and industries in India.
In its report, the House panel has also recommended that the Centre should draw up a plan for the maintenance and upgradation of infrastructure and digital assets created under the Smart Cities Mission.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
Also Read: India’s cleanest city to issue its 1st green bonds to fund solar power plant. ‘Have Indore’s trust’