Prime Minister launches Smart Cities, AMRUT, Urban Housing Missions
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Prime Minister launches Smart Cities, AMRUT, Urban Housing Missions
Says people driven urban planning and development in the making for the first time in the country
PM says own house motivates poor towards higher goals
New urban initiatives are pro-poor, says Shri M.Venkaiah Naidu
Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi today launched three mega urban schemes viz., Smart Cities Mission, Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) and Housing for All in urban area setting in motion the process of urban transformation to enable better living and drive economic growth. Stressing on the need for people centric urban planning and development, he said that for the first time in the county such an effort has been launched.
Defining Smart City as one which is one or two steps ahead of the aspirations of the people, Prime Minster said smart city aspirants are being selected through a process of competition and with effective citizen participation ending the ‘top down’ approach and leading to ‘people centric’ urban development. He further said that the new schemes were formulated after extensive consultations with all the stakeholders, the biggest of its kind in the country so far. Shri Modi noted that the management of urbanization in the country offered the biggest challenge and opportunity for the people and elected municipal leadership to contribute to transforming urban India.
Stating that public representatives are remembered for the good work they did during their tenures, the Prime Minister urged Mayors and Municipal Chairpersons attending the launch to contribute for the good of the people. He reminded them that the 500 of them assembled have the responsibility of ensuring better quality of life for 40% of the country’s population that either live in urban areas or dependent on them for livelihood. He urged them to help migrants to urban areas meet their aspirations.
Stating that urbanization should be viewed as an opportunity, Prime Minster noted that had this been recognized about 30 years ago, situation would have been far better today. He said that with clear vision and effective planning, all possible hurdles could be overcome and even resource mobilization would not be an issue.
The Prime Minister observed that a house would be a major turning point in the lives of the poor as it would motivate them towards higher goals like earning and saving more for further bettering their living standards. He said that the Government is committed to enable 2 cr urban poor own their houses by the year 2022, the 75 year of Independence of the Country.
Speaking on the occasion, Minister of Urban Development and Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Shri M.Venkaiah Naidu said that the Government was keen to promote inclusive development and the new schemes are pro-poor in their orientation. Elaborating on this Shri Naidu said that Smart Cities, AMRUT and Housing Mission would help the urban poor through increased access to water supply, sewer connections, public transportation, housing, improved urban governance ensuring transparency and accountability and better delivery of services, enhanced employment opportunities etc.
Shri Naidu said that several initiatives launched at the behest of the Prime Minister like Skill India, Make in India, Digital India, Clean India, PM’s Jan Dhan Yojana, PAHAL, Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao, National Institute for Transformation of India (NITI Ayog) etc were all aimed at transforming the country to enable it realise its full potential.
Shri Venkaiah Naidu noted that the new urban schemes have been so designed and formulated so as to completely do away with any subjectivity or discretion in selection of cities and in allocation of funds and States are being given full liberty and flexibility in formulation, appraisal and approval of projects. He said that urban reforms, smart leadership and smart people are key to the success of new missions.
In his welcome address, Minister of State for Urban Development and HUPA Shri Babul Supriyo said that the triad of Centre, States and Urban Local Bodies are like the upper, middle and lower berths of a railway compartment, together moving on the same track of development of the country.
Chief Ministers of Maharashtra and Haryana, Deputy Chief Minister of J&K, Ministers from 20 other States, Mayors, Municipal Chairpersons and Commissioners from 500 cities and towns, senior officials from Central and State governments, diplomats from 15 countries, representatives of stakeholder organisations and multilateral bodies have attended the launch.
Discussions over implementations issues relating to the three new missions and Swachh Bharat Mission would continue over the next two days.
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No role for Central Government in sanctioning of projects under new Urban Missions
Operational Guidelines prescribe objective, equitable criteria for selection of Smart, AMRUT Cities and allocation of of funds to States
Action Plans for resource mobilization and Urban Reforms, Citizen participation made mandatory
Delay in fund transfer to Urban Local Bodies, diversion by States to be penalized
Guidelines ensure timely execution projects to avoid JNNURM pitfalls
Based on the learnings of implementation of Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) that ended up in sub-optimal physical and financial performance, the Central Government has radically overhauled the Operational Guidelines for implementation of Smart Cities Mission, Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) and Housing for All Mission in Urban Areas. The Guidelines released by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi at the launch of the three new urban missions here today allow the States and Union Territories full liberty and flexibility in formulation, approval and execution of projects under the three missions. The two urban ministries have sought to ensure timely sanction and execution and certainty of resources for various projects and participation of citizens in identifying development needs under the new urban schemes. Central Government has virtually withdrawn from the earlier practice of appraising and sanctioning individual projects, there by ending the scope for subjectivity and discretion.
The major new provisions incorporated in the Guidelines and common to all the three urban missions include:
1.Objective criteria for selection of cities and allocation of funds:
Potential Smart Cities and AMRUT cities are to be based on an objective and equitable criteria giving equal weightage to urban population and number of statutory cities in each State/UT. Housing Mission to be implemented in all the 4,041 statutory cities/towns.
For smart city development, each selected city will be provided central assistance of Rs.100 cr per year. Under AMRUT, allocation of funds will be as per urban population and number of cities/towns in each State/UT. Under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana in urban areas, it will be based on the number of urban poor and slum dwellers.
2.States/UTs to appraise and approve individual projects unlike in the past when urban ministries used to do so.
3.To avoid delays and non-completion of projects on account of lack of resources, States/UTs will now be required to firmly indicate resource tie ups under state level action plans.
4. To enhance urban governance, clear Action Plans for timely implementation of identified reforms need to be indicated.
5.Consultations with urban citizens made mandatory to ensure need based and bottom up planning of projects.
6. State level Action Plans to clearly indicate convergence with other central and state government schemes as appropriate for resource maximization.
7.PPP model shall be the main resource of resource mobilization.
8.Involvement of Members of Parliament and State Assemblies in formulation and monitoring of projects provided for.
Mission-wise Guidelines seeking better execution of projects are as below:
AMRUT
1.No projects without availability of land and all necessary clearences shall be included in the Mission by States/UTs.
2.States shall transfer funds to urban local bodies within 7 days of transfer by central government and no diversion of funds to be made failing which penal interest would be charged besides taking other adverse action by the centre.
3.Action Plans should provide for O&M costs for assets created for at least five years based on user charges.
4.Instead of penalizing States/ULBs for non-implementation of reforms by linking fund release with progress on reforms resulting in delays, the Guidelines now provide for incentivizing reforms by earmarking 10% of annual allocation to be allocated to good performers at the end of each year.
5.For water supply, sewerage, septage, storm water drains and urban transport, centre’s share to be in the range of 1/3 of project cost to 50%. States to mobilize the balance with its own share being not less than 20%.
6. A set of 11 Reforms to be implemented in four years including :Promoting e-governance, Improving collection of various taxes, fee and user charges, Augmenting double entry accounting, Constitution and professionalization of municipal cadre, Preparation of GIS based Master Plans, Devolution of funds and functionaries to urban local bodies, Review of Building By-laws, Setting up financial intermediaries for pooling and disbursement of resources, Credit Rating of urban local bodies, Energy and Water Audit and Achieving Swachh Bharat Milestones.
Smart Cities Mission
1.Central assistance to be used only for infrastructure projects which have larger public benfit
2.Minimum area norm for Retrofitting is 500 acres; for Redevelopment-50 acres; for Green Field projects-250 acres. This will be 50% for North-Eastern and Himalayan states.
3.Bench marks to be achieved include : 10% of energy needs to be met from renewable sources, 80% of building construction to be green and 35% of housing in green field projects to be for economically weaker sections.
4.Special Purpose Vehicles to be set up for implementation of smart city plans with 50:50 equity of States and Urban Local Bodies
5.An Inter-departmental Task Force to be set up to coordinate all aspects of smart city development
Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana(Urban)
1.Ownership of houses to be in the name of woman or jointly with husband
2.Houses of 30 sq.mt carpet area to be built for EWS category. In case of non-availability States can relax with the consent of beneficiaries. States also can enhance the area while meeting the additional expenditure.
3.Central grant of Rs.one lakh on an average per house to be provided by the Central Government can be used by States for any slum redevelopment project in the state to make them viable.
4.Interest support @ 6.50% to be paid soon after sanction of loan to the beneficiary so as to bring down EMI .
5.Beneficiaries can submit Self-certificate/Affidavit as proof of income.
6.Under Affordable Housing in Partnership with Private and Public Sector, 35% of houses shall be for economically weaker sections and the minimum project size shall be above 250 houses.
7.Central Ministries/Agencies also to take up Slum Redevelopment Projects on their lands without charging for land and will be eligible for central grant.
8.Under In-situ Slum Redevelopment, Private developers to be chosen through open tendering and it is developers’ responsibility to provide transit accommodation during construction period. Private developers to be given only that much of land required for commercial viability of project.
All the three Missions would be implemented as Centrally Sponsored Schemes except Affordable Housing with Credit Linked Subsidy component. Share of States/UTs vary from one to the other. Under AMRUT, share of States shall not be less than 20% and under Smart Cities Mission, share of States/ULBs shall match that of central assistance and the rest to be mobilized by the States/UTs and ULBs. Under PMAY, it has been left to the States/UTs who would be required to mobilize the balance after centre’s share.
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Criteria for selection of potential smart cities announced -Only capable cities to be chosen through two stage competition
Past track record under JNNURM, service levels, financial strength to decide selection at State level
Economic impact of smart city plan, inclusivity, e-governance, citizen participation to decide financing of smart cities in Stage-2
Given the challenges involved in developing 100 smart cities, only the capable cities will be chosen under the Smart Cities Mission through a two-stage competition. This was indicated in the Operation Guidelines for Smart Cities Mission released by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi while launching the Mission here today. The selection criteria to be used in both the stages of competition was elaborated in the Guidelines.
In the Stage-1 of City Challenge Competition, each State and Union Territory will score all their cities based on a set of criteria and nominate the top scorers as per the indicated number of potential smart cities for participation in the Stage-2 of competition. The evaluation criteria for Stage-1 of competition within the State/UT is as below:
1.Existing Service Levels (25 points) : This includes Increase in service levels over Census 2011, An operational Online Grievance Redressal System, Publication of at least first monthly e-newsletter and online publication of municipal budget expenditure details for the last two financial years on website.
2.Institutional Systems and Capacities (15 points): This covers imposition of penalties for delays in service delivery and improvement in internal resource generation over the last three years;
3.Self-financing (30 points): This would be reflected in payment of salaries by urban local bodies up to last month, Auditing of accounts up to FY 2012-13, Contribution of internal revenues to the Budget for 2014-15 and Percentage of establishment and maintenance cost of water supply met through user charges during 2014-15.
4.Past track record (30 points) : Percentage of JNNURM projects completed which were sanctioned till 2012, Percentage of City level reforms achieved under JNNURM and extent of capital expenditure met from internal resources.
The 100 potential smart cities nominated by all the States and UTs based on Stage-1 criteria will prepare Smart City Plans which will be rigorously evaluated in the Stage-2 of the competition for prioritizing cities for financing. In the first round of this stage, 20 top scorers will be chosen for financing during this financial year. The remaining would be asked to make up the deficiencies identified by the Apex Committee in the Ministry of Urban Development for participation in the next two rounds of competition. 40 cities each will be selected for financing during the next rounds of competition.
Stage-2 criteria for evaluation of Smart City Plans is as below:
CITY LEVEL EVALUATION(30 points)
1.Credibility of implementation : This encompasses improvement in operational efficiency over the last three years as reflected in average time taken to give building plan approvals, increase in property tax assessment and collection, collection of user charges for water, improvement in power supply, easing of traffic congestion, online accessing of statutory documents through adoption of IT etc.
2.City Vision and Strategy : As reflected in the degree of correlation with the needs and aspirations of the residents, use of ICT to improve public service delivery, impact on core economic activity and inclusiveness.
PROPOSAL LEVEL EVALUATION (70 points)
3.Impact of proposal : To what extent the proposal is inclusive in terms of benefits to the poor and disadvantaged, Extent of employment generation, Articulation of quantifiable outcomes based on citizen consultations, Impact on environment etc.
4.Cost effectiveness of Smart City Plan : Application of smart solutions for doing more with less of resources, Alternatives considered to enhance cost effectiveness of the proposal, firming up of resources required from various sources, Provision for Operation & Maintenance Costs, IT interventions to improve public service delivery.
5.Innovation and Scalability : Extent of adoption of best practices in consultation with citizens, Applicability of project to the entire city, Adoption of smart solutions and Pan-city developments.
6.Processes followed : Extent of citizen consultations, vulnerable sections like the differently abled, children, elderly etc., ward committees and area sabhas and important citizen groups, Extent of use of social media and mobile governance during citizen consultations and Accommodation of contrary voices in the strategy and planning.
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