Urban renewal of the over populated mega cities has become the first casualty of the generous loan waiver scheme of the UPA government. Projects dealing with water supply in the towns and cities of Uttar Pradesh (worth Rs 4,000 crore), sewage disposal in Mumbai, the Yamuna action plan in New Delhi, those involving the upgrading of urban infrastructure and its administration in 63 cities across India are going to be taken up only by the new government at the Centre, going by the instructions of the finance ministry to state governments on funding for the first urban renewal programme in India, expected to cost Rs 60,000 crore.
Electoral arithmetic has made the government decide that a focus on farmers was more useful than the urban poor, who would have been among the first beneficiaries of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). The flagship programme has a separate dedicated mission to provide basic services to the urban poor and improve the lot of slum-dwellers via integrated housing development projects.
The finance ministry has cited a paucity of funds to turn down states? demand for about Rs 3 lakh crore to finance several projects under the JNNURM. The ministry has informed the states cannot make available the funds as it has to provide resources for the debt waiver and relief scheme for farmers, now estimated to cost the exchequer Rs 71,680 crore.
While expressing its inability to meet the states? demand to finance projects in areas like housing, sanitation and drinking water supply, the ministry has stressed that it needs to provide funds for other big-ticket social sector programmes of the government like the National Rural Employment Guarantee programme and the National Rural Health Mission.
According to senior government officials, the finance ministry is opposed to any kind of increase in funds for projects under JNNURM. This stand of the ministry gains significance in the backdrop of urban development minister S Jaipal Reddy announcing recently that the Centre would try to mobilise more funds to undertake various developmental works under JNNURM.
Reddy had said that the Rs one lakh crore set aside for JNNURM was not sufficient to take up the mega urbanisation work happening at a significant pace. The ministry has further said that in future, states with lesser number of projects would get priority while disbursing funds compared to states which have done work under JNNURM or those which have a bigger list of projects.
Over 1,100 projects with a total cost of more than Rs 43,000 crore have been sanctioned in sectors such as water supply, sanitation, transport, road and housing in many cities spread over several states under the mission. In Tamil Nadu alone, 28 projects have been cleared so far at a total cost of Rs 2,587 crore under the JNNURM.
The Centre has allocated Rs 706 crore for 97 schemes to cover small and medium towns across the country. Another 24 projects worth Rs 2,134 crore have been sanctioned to build houses for the urban poor.