New Delhi: The Centre on Monday clarified that there is no proposal under consideration of the government for adding more cities under Smart City Mission (SCM). Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri said in the Rajya Sabha that as of January 2022, the Government of India has released Rs 28,413.60 crore for 100 smart cities, out of which Rs 23,668.27 crore has been utilised.
"As of January 21, 2022 these smart cities have tendered out 6,721 projects worth Rs 1,88,507 crore, work order has been issued in 6,124 projects worth Rs 1,62,908 crore, 3,421 projects worth Rs 58,735 core have been completed," said Puri.
The central government launched SCM on June 25, 2015. A hundred smart cities were selected through four rounds of competition from 2016 to 2018. As per SCM guidelines, the central government will provide financial support to the extent of Rs 48,000 crore over five years and on an average Rs 100 crore per city per year. An equal amount on a matching basis is being contributed by the state government and urban local bodies.
"In fact, the centre has earlier extended the timeline for the implementation of the smart city mission to June 2023," the minister said. "Due to the pandemic, work towards the smart city project has slowed down. It is an ambitious project to make our cities smarter. The physical progress of the programme was earlier expected to be measurable by 2021, when the first 20 smart cities were to be completed," said Prof KK Pandey, from the centre of urban studies, Indian Institute of Public Administration.
Meanwhile, Puri informed that an amount of Rs 3,013.73 crore has been sanctioned for slum re-development under the smart city mission. Under the SCM, projects including those related to slum re-development are to be done by the city authorities in accordance with their smart city plans.
