New Delhi: A Parliamentary Standing Committee on Urban Development has found negligence and irregularities in the implementation of smart city projects across India.
The committee headed by BJP MP Jagadambika Pal in its latest report said that the committee's examination of 100 smart city mission has revealed various issues like frequent changes in smart city projects.
"Projects in Jaipur smart city keep changing, no worthwhile work done in smart cities of Srinagar and Jammu, irregularities in smart city projects in Patna," the committee said in its report.
The committee's examination has also revealed that not much progress has been visible in smart city work at Smart City of Aurangabad, Raipur and Patna also.
The committee noted that there was a need for extra effort so that complaints are generally addressed.
In this connection, the committee also appreciated the work done in smart cities of Surat and Indore.
"The Committee recalls that in Indore they had an occasion to see the innovating projects like 'Gaiki Roti ATM', 'Nekki ki Deevar' censure based waste collection," it said.
The committee opined that all these projects needed to be replicated in other states as well so as to use the smart city mission to benefit the common man and society at large.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, however, informed the Parliamentary panel that the Ministry is keeping a close watch on the progress and performance of the smart city mission.
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The Ministry had informed that the concept of Sister Cities has been launched, wherein top 20 cities have been paired with the bottom 20 cities to undertake a 100 days challenge to improve performance.
"For instance, Surat and Indore have been paired to help Saharanpur and Guwahati respectively. Apart from helping these cities individually, the knowledge sharing on the common platform helps other cities to learn and replicate the success stories of better-performing cities," the ministry has informed.
Launched in 2015, India's smart city mission is an urban renewal and retrofitting programme to make cities citizen-friendly and sustainable.
Out of the total Rs 2,05,018 crore worth of projects proposed to be implemented under the Smart City Mission, only 45 percent is to be funded from budgetary sources (50:50 contribution by central and states/UTs government), 21 percent from the public-private partnership (PPP), 21 percent from convergence and 13 percent from others (loans, debts, municipal bonds, own resources etc).
"Under smart city mission, every effort is being made for enhancing funds for overall urban infrastructure development," MoHUA said.
