With 54% hike, govt bets big on smart city project

NEW DELHI: The Smart cities programme received a 54 % jump in the budget for 2018-19 over the previous year, and emerged the government’s flagship scheme in the area of urban renewal.

The programme to develop 100 smart cities – 99 have been selected till now – has been allocated ~6169 crore in 2018-19 .

“Urbanisation is our opportunity and priority….i am happy to inform that 99 cities have been selected with an outlay of ~2.04 lakh crore. These cities have started implementing various projects like smart command and control centre, smart roads, solar rooftops, intelligent transport systems, smart parks,” finance minister Arun Jaitley said in his budget speech.

Jaitley said that the urban modernisation programme has catalysed reforms in cities across the country. “482 cities have started credit rating. 144 cities have got investment grade rating,” the finance minister said.

However, the government’s other urban development scheme — Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation – which aims to develop 500 cities will feel the pinch with its allocation cut to ~6000 crore in 2018-19 from ~9000 crore in 2017-18.

The overall allocation for the Union Housing and Urban Affairs ministry saw a marginal increase of 2.8 % – from ~40,617 crore in 2017-18 to ~41,765 crore in 2018-19. “In 2017-18, the urban development ministry was allocated ~34,211 crore while the housing and urban poverty alleviation ministry was given ~6,406 crore. In July 2017 the two ministries were merged,” said a senior ministry official who did not want to be named. Two other programmes for urban areas – Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) and Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) – also saw a marginal increase in allocation of funds. While ~2500 crore has been allocated for SBM for building toilets, up from ~2300 crore last year, PMAY received ~6,505 crore, up from ~6,042 crore in 2017-18.

Given the thrust on the affordable housing program the government has allowed the housing ministry to raise ~25,000 crore from extra budgetary resources.

“Besides raising money from the market, we will also raise resources through loans from National Small Savings Fund, which comprises funds collected from small savings such as PPF, Kisan Vikas Patra, National Small Savings Scheme,” added the official.