Panels to draft development plans for 13 cities

The 13 cities are Lucknow,Kanpur,Allahabad,Varanasi,Moradabad,Gorakhpur,Aligarh,Meerut,Bareilly,Ghaziabad,Jhansi,Saharanapur and Agra. All these cities have a population more than five lakh.

Besides making development plans,the committees will also examine the projects taken up the local municipal corporations and development authorities.

“At present,municipal corporations,development authorities and other government agencies separately plan for their areas. These metropolitan planning committees will coordinate among these departments and draft development plans for the metropolitan area as a whole,” said Alok Ranjan,Principal Secretary (Urban Development).

He added that a provision for the constitution of planning committees for metropolitan cities is already there on the guidelines of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).

According to officials,once the Cabinet approves the guidelines,the Urban Development department will start the exercise for setting up these committees. Each committee will have members from the local municipal corporation,other public representatives like MLAs,senior officials from the government,officials from different departments,their engineers and planning experts. Chairperson of the committee will have to forward the development plans — as recommended by the committee — to the state government.

“Various development schemes under JNNURM are already being implemented in these 13 cities. The committees will also monitor the implementation of development works jointly funded by the state government and the Centre,” said an official.