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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Drive for funds, not on urban mission

Drive for funds, not on urban mission

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published Published on Apr 28, 2012   modified Modified on Apr 28, 2012
-The Telegraph
 
The urban development ministry is miffed at the budget allocation for the urban renewal mission and has told the House standing committee it would not “sit quietly” but fight for more funds from the finance ministry.

The aggressive posture comes despite the poor progress of the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission, with only 127 of the 555 projects under its first phasecompleted by the deadline of March 31, 2012.

A two-year extension has now been granted for the first phase while the government is revising the second phase of the mission.

The budget allocation of Rs 8,870 crore for the mission comes to less than one per cent of its requirement of Rs 50 lakh crore (for five years), as assessed by a high-powered committee headed by Isher Judge Ahluwalia.

“We had asked for more allocation but we have been given less…. We are not going to sit quietly. The high-powered committee has assessed the requirement (at) Rs50 lakh crore,” urban development secretary Sudhir Krishna has told thestanding committee, headed by Janata Dal (United) leader Sharad Yadav.

“We had also undertaken a study by McKinsey, which has also recommended the requirement of more or less Rs 50 lakh crore.”

Urban development minister Kamal Nath has written to Planning Commission deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia, complaining about the budget allocation.

The high-powered committee agrees with the ministry. “Keeping in view the plight of urbanconditions in India, the increase of 11.77 per cent (compared with lastyear’s budget allocation) is very nominal,” the committee noted.

“Taking into account the rate of inflation between 2011-12 and 2012-13 (of) between 8(and) 9 per cent, the increase of allocation is not more than 5 per cent.”

The committee has rapped the ministry for the mission’s below-par performance.

Defending itself in a written reply to the standing committee, the ministry blamed the state governments for the slow progress. Under the mission’s rules, the states have to upgrade their municipalities, increase property tax collection, implement IT-based systems and carry out other reforms to beeligible for financial assistance.

The ministry has written that the progress of the projects has been affected by states’ inability to execute the reforms within the deadline as well as by theirfailure to submit utilisation certificates for the funds received.

Ministry officialshave told the standing committee that guidelines for the second phase of the mission would be finalised in the next six months.


The Telegraph, 28 April, 2012, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120428/jsp/nation/story_15428925.jsp#.T5uqKoFXOkw


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