Some Smart Cities Mission projects to miss June 30 deadline, states must take over, , panel told

“The ministry has stated before the committee that in case of non-completion of these projects within the extended time frame, the state governments concerned will have to complete the projects at their own cost. The committee is of the strong opinion that the ministry’s role should not be confined to transfer of their share regarding mission/scheme/project, but they have to remain watchful for the execution and successful completion of the projects,” the report said.

The committee, chaired by JDU MP Rajiv Ranjan Singh, was told by Housing and Urban Affairs Secretary Manoj Joshi that the ministry did not want to extend the mission further.

Among the reasons cited by the ministry for the delays were difficulties in resettlement of local population and legal issues such as land procurement. Frequent transfers of smart cities’ CEOs and delay in projects that require convergence with other government ministries or agencies were also flagged.

As on December 1, the ministry said that out of 7,970 projects worth Rs 1,70,400 crore in the 100 cities, 6,419 projects worth Rs 1,25,105 crore have been completed and 1,551 projects worth Rs 45,295 crore are underway. Among the cities lagging behind were North-Eastern, Himalayan cities and those in small Union Territories.

“Progress of work is from 80% to 100% in 57 cities amongst which Madurai is the only Smart City which has completed 100% of smart city projects by December 2024. However, progress of work is 50% or below 50% in 14 cities. Gangtok, Atal Nagar, Shillong, Silvassa, Itanagar, Puducherry, Saharanpur and Port Blair have completed only 16%, 23%, 24%, 28%, 31%, 32%, 35% and 39% of projects so far respectively,” it said.

The committee recommended that the next phase of the mission be brought for Tier-2 cities in the radius of 50-100 km of capital cities and tourist hubs. The committee also recommended that the right to privacy be protected, given that the mission had led to installation of over 76,000 CCTV cameras, Integrated Command and Control Centres in all 100 cities, red-light violation detection and smart health systems.