Modi government’s flagship schemes, Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) and Smart City Mission (SCM) have virtually come to a standstill, with meagre budgetary allocations made to them.
This is the conclusion of the Standing Committee on Urban Development, tabled in Parliament last week (March 9, 2018) The Committee has severely criticised the government for its inability to put its money where its mouth is.
“It is a matter of serious concern that the flagship programmes, which are widely publicised as touching and transforming the lives of the majority in the country, are sidelined;” the committee observed.
On the North-east, the Committee came down heavily on the government for the gap between promises and the allocations; “The Committee are unhappy with the poor performance of various schemes in the North Eastern region even though implementation issues like long rainy season, landslides, difficult terrain, labour problems, etc. come in the way. The Committee also find that the allocation for NER & NERUDP out of the total budget of the Ministry is just 0.96% whereas it ought to have been at least 10%.”
On the Smart City Mission, it said various issues like the ground reality of work done under the Mission being different from the claims made by the government came up before it. The panel found that in spite of available mechanism, complaints about poor work under the mission were still pouring. (Modi-led BJP in 2014 had promised that 100 new smart cities would be identified and built)
When it came to toilet construction under Swachh Bharat, just 43,22,776 of the targeted 66,42,220 individual household toilets were built.
“At the current pace, with just about 20 months left for the completion of the mission, the panel has doubts about the probability of achieving the physical targets by the government,” the Parliamentary Committee said.
On declaring a large number of cities as Open Defecation free or ODF, the Committee observed it was all being done in a hurry.
“The committee has serious apprehensions that while chasing a deadline to declare the country ODF, the ground realities are being ignored.” (2,148 cities and 12 states have been declared ODF under specific criteria for declaring so.)
About the PMAY, it noted that “all is not well with the implementation of the scheme and the progress of PMAY has been disappointing.”
It has pointed out that as against an assessment of 120 lakh houses, to be made available by 2022, only 25.04 lakh houses are either completed or are under construction.
On no funds, it said that out of a total project cost of Rs 2.04 lakh crore and total Central share of Rs 57,699 crore, about half, just Rs 26,162 crore had been sanctioned for release.
READ: The full report is here:
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