Smart City Mission: Only 5% of projects finished in 2.5 years

New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government's flagship Smart City mission is running at a very slow pace with only 5.2 percent of the total identified projects being completed in the last two years, a newspaper report has said.

Under the Smart City Mission, 90 cities have so far been identified through three rounds of competition for implementing various projects. A total investment of Rs 1.91 lakh crore has been proposed by these 90 cities.

The Times of India report said that the identified projects have been completed with just 1.4 percent of the total envisaged investment. As per the mission statement and guidelines, he duration of the mission is five years, from 2015-16 to 2019-20 and each city will get Rs 500 crore as central assistance for implementing various projects.

About 72 percent of the identified projects are still at the stage of preparation of detailed project report. The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has completed maximum number of smart city projects. NDMC leads the chart with 23 completed projects, Varanasi has completed 16 projects and Raipur has finished 10 project. Twenty-seven cities have not issued a single tender for works to be carried out under the mission, TOI said.

Last week, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi had targeted the Centre for "under-utilisation" of Smart City Mission funds.

However, according to an official Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry statement, Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has recently informed a Parliamentary consultative committee that projects worth Rs 1,35,459 crore are in various stages of implementation.

147 projects worth Rs 1,872 crore have been completed, it added.

Puri said the implementation of the mission is done by a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to be set up at city-level in the form of a limited company and are promoted by the State/UT and the Urban Local Body (ULB) jointly both having 50:50 equity shareholding.

So far 77 smart cities have established their SPVs, he informed.

Puri said the tendering process has started for 283 projects with a cost of Rs 16,549 crore and detailed project reports are being prepared for 2,029 projects worth Rs 1,02,366 crore.

With Agency Inputs