Centre uses ICCC & PMAY (U) to fight COVID-19

At a time when India is fighting against the pandemic, country's 47 Integrated command and control centres (ICCC) under the Smart City Mission will be used as crisis management control rooms. This was announced by Union Minister for Housing and Urban (MoHUA) Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri while attending a programme commemorating the fifth anniversary of NDA's flagship programmes.

New Delhi:More than 22,000 houses built under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY-U) have been used as dedicated COVID-19 facility centres across states and UTs in India.

At a time when India is fighting against the pandemic, country's 47 Integrated command and control centres (ICCC) under the Smart City Mission have also been used as crisis management control rooms helping in monitoring the on-ground situation besides leveraging its services as a helpline for telemedicine and counselling service for citizens.

This was announced by Union Minister for Housing and Urban (MoHUA) Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri while attending a programme commemorating the fifth anniversary of NDA's flagship programmes like PMAY-Urban, Smart City Mission, and Atal Mission for Rejuvenation of Urban Transport (AMRUT).

A recent study conducted by Observer Research Foundation (ORF) has said that some work has been initiated especially in smart city projects in five years but a lot more needs to be done.

The study titled Smart City Making in India: Union Budget 2020 and The Way Forward found that 54 per cent of the completed projects are only in four states and 34 smart cities have not even completed a single project.

According to the analysis as of 25 July 2019, out of the Rs 2.1 lakh crore worth of approved projects, only 18 per cent of the smart city projects have been completed.

It may be mentioned here that MoHUA has identified 5151 projects worth Rs 2 lakh crore in 100 smart cities under Smart City Mission.

"As of today, the mission has tendered around 4700 projects worth Rs 166000 crore which is about 81 per cent of the total projects proposed. More than 1638 projects worth over Rs 27000 crore have also been completed," Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said.

Smart City Mission is also supporting interested cities in raising finance through Municipal Bonds. Recently, six cities were selected for technical assistance from the US Treasury department to raise municipal bonds.

Interestingly, the government has initiated the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) programme in the smart city mission with 93 PPP projects that have been completed while around 204 projects are under implementation.

Under the recently launched TULIP programme, more than 25,000 students have been registered on the platform and more than 1,000 internship positions have been opened by different cities.

Puri said that ever since PMAY (U) was launched five years back, the government has sanctioned 1.05 crore houses against a demand of 1.12 crore house spread across 4550 urban cities.

So far, 65 lakh houses have been grounded and 35 lakh have been delivered. The total investment approved in the project was Rs 6.37 lakh crore and put of which Rs 72000 crore have already been disbursed by the central government, he said.

"The PMAY has also created 3.65 crore jobs in the construction sector," Puri said.

It may be mentioned here that as per the World Bank Doing Business Report, India's rank in Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) in construction permits jumped to 158 spots in the last three years from 185 (in 2017).

Under the AMRUT mission, 79 lakh households in urban areas have been provided with water tap connections and 45 lakh sewer connections.

Projects worth Rs 10654 crore have been completed and Rs 65175 crore are in the advanced stage of implementations. AMRUT mission has also led to the development of more than 1560 green spaces and parks, adding more than 5300 acres of permeable green spaces.

Implementation of LED light projects under AMRUT mission has also resulted in reductions in CO2 emission by 13 lakh tonnes per annum, Puri said.