MoHUA to Miss Its Second Deadline to Complete Modi's Smart City Mission

The Narendra Modi-led Central Government launched the Smart Cities Mission (SCM) on June 25, 2015, to promote cities that provide core infrastructure, clean and sustainable environment and give a decent quality of life to their citizens through the application of ‘smart solutions’, but the work was going on at a snail's pace, reports ETV Bharat's Gautam Debroy.

New Delhi: The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) is likely to miss its second extended deadline to complete all Smart City projects by June this year, as government statistics revealed that several of the Smart Cities are yet to achieve 50 per cent implementation of their projects.

Ironically, of the 20 worst-performing cities under Smart City Mission (SCM), at least 10 cities belong to the North-Eastern states, including Assam’s Guwahati. Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri has recently claimed that all the Smart City projects will be completed by June this year.

In fact, an internal assessment conducted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has revealed that the progress of work is from 80 per cent to 100 per cent in 57 cities amongst which Madurai is the only Smart City, which has completed 100 per cent of Smart City projects by December 2023.

The government documents in possession of ETV Bharat's progress of work is 50 per cent or below 50 per cent in 14 cities. Gangtok, Atal Nagar, Shillong, Silvassa, Itanagar, Puducherry, Saharanpur and Port Blair have completed only 16 per cent, 23 per cent, 24 per cent, 28 per cent, 31 per cent, 32 per cent, 35 per cent and 39 per cent of projects so far respectively.

The ministry has said that as of December 1, 2023, out of a total number of 7,970 projects worth Rs 1,70,400 crore taken up by Smart Cities, 6,419 projects worth Rs 1,25,105 crore have been completed and 1,551 projects worth Rs 45,295 crore are at work order stage.

A large number of selected cities are from the bigger states, including Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Gujarat. Three or four cities are chosen from Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Punjab. The remaining states, including the smaller and hilly and northeastern states, have one or two.

The Narendra Modi-led Central government launched the Smart Cities Mission (SCM) on June 25, 2015, for five years. The main objective of the mission is to promote cities that provide core infrastructure, clean and sustainable environment and give a decent quality of life to their citizens through the application of ‘smart solutions’. A total number of 100 cities have been selected for development as Smart Cities.

As 100 cities have been selected at different timelines during three years from 2015 to 2018, the timeline of five years for completion of the projects was set between 2019 and 2023. However, the mission is now extended to June 2024.

The ministry has said that out of its proposed share of Rs 49,000 crore, the Central government has released Rs 42,055 crore (86 per cent) under the Smart Cities Mission up to December 2023. Similarly, out of their proposed share of Rs 44,150 crore, the state governments released around Rs 35,826 crore (82 per cent) under the Smart Cities Mission up to December last year.

As per the data, Guwahati ranked 97th in the list of 100 Smart Cities with hardly 50 per cent of the project having been completed till December last year. As many as 22 projects have been taken up in Guwahati with an amount of Rs 945 crore out of which 11 projects costing Rs 103 crore have been completed. The remaining 11 projects worth Rs 842 crore are still under work order stage.

Imphal ranked 76th with hardly 48 per cent of the Smart City Mission completed. According to the government statistics, of the total 25 projects taken up for execution in Imphal at a cost of Rs 513 crore, hardly 12 projects of Rs 55 crore have been completed.

The remaining cities in the northeast, including Gangtok ranked 95, Aizawl 94, Shillong 93, Itanagar 92, Agartala 89, Pahighat 86, Namchi 72 and Kohima 59.

Out of a total number of 360 projects worth Rs 7,737 crore in the Northeast, almost half 163 projects worth Rs 5,305 crore are at the work order stage. In Shillong and Gangtok, only four and six projects are complete while works on 17 and 38 projects are still going on respectively.

Cities like Shimla (ranked 90), Dharamshala (ranked 84), Diu (ranked 91), Port Blair (ranked 98), Puducherry (ranked 99) and Kavaratti (ranked 100) also find mention at the bottom of the ranking. While the cities had initially planned to execute 5151 projects, they have taken up 7,970 projects for execution suggesting that no project has been dropped.

Significantly, the excess number of projects has not necessarily translated into increased spending. On the contrary, the overall spending has gone down. It may be seen that the total cost of 7,970 projects of Rs 1,70,400 crore is less than the initially estimated cost of Rs 2,03,018 crore for 5,151 projects.