Centre clears Rs19,170-cr outlay on AMRUT action plans for 474 cities

The ministry of urban development has so far approved city level action plans for improving basic urban infrastructure in 474 cities in 18 states and union territories involving an investment of Rs19,170 crore under the Atal Mission for Urban Rejuvenation and Transformation (AMRUT) for 2015-16.

City level plans of 23 mission cities in Delhi, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and North-Eastern states are still to be approved.

An inter-ministerial apex committee chaired by Madhusudhan Prasad, secretary (Urban Development) today approved AMRUT annual action plans for Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka for 2015-16. Uttar Pradesh has 61 Atal Mission cities while Karnataka has 27. This was the fifth meeting of the committee.

The urban development ministry has identified a total of 497 cities under Atal Mission.

About 90 per cent of this expenditure will be on improving water supply and sewerage infrastructure, followed by storm water drains, non-motorised urban transport and provision of green spaces and parks.

The central government assistance for this project outlay is over Rs9,000 crore.

The apex committee noted that even as water supply in urban areas of Uttar Pradesh was high, non-revenue water (water supplied without collection of user charges) was also very high, exceeding the norm of 20 per cent for urban areas, in case of all mission cities. Hence the state has been asked to focus on bringing down NRW to national norm.

However, in case of Karnataka, the committee noted that the 27 urban local bodies included in Atal Mission were required to contribute 30 per cent to 47 per cent of project costs and asked the state government to increase its share in project costs to reduce the burden on municipal bodies.

The apex committee approved project outlay of Rs4,646 crore for UP under Atal Mission for 2015-16. Out of this, Rs1,519 crore is for water supply infrastructure, Rs1,698 crore for expanding sewerage network services and Rs70 crore for providing green spaces and parks in mission cities.

In UP, the coverage of water taps is to the extent of 54 per cent of urban households while water supply is at 161 litres per capita per day, which is much higher than the norm of 135 lpcd prescribed for urban areas in the country.
 
As per the approval, investments to be made in some major cities include:  Haziabad - Rs.352 crore, Lucknow - Rs305 crore, Jhansi - Rs223 crore, Kanpur - Rs200 crore, Allahabad - Rs190 crore, Varanasi - Rs180 crore, Modinagar - Rs180 crore, Mirzapur - Rs140 crore, Meerut - Rs125 crore, Moradabad - Rs109 crore, Bulanddhahar - Rs107 crore, Ghazipur - Rs98 crore, Shahranpur - Rs80 crore and Raibareilly - Rs65 crore.

For Karnataka, the apex committee approved a project expenditure of Rs1,258 crore under AMRUT Plan for 2015-16. Of this, Rs552 crore will be spent on augmenting water supply in mission cities, 613 on sewerage projects, construction of storm water drains - Rs49 crore, provision of green spaces and parks - Rs28 crore and urban transport - Rs18 crore.

In Karnataka, coverage of households with water taps ranged from a low of 18 per cent in Chickmagaluru to 87 per cent in Mandya. Water supply is reported to be in the range of 35 litres per capita per day in Robertsonpet to 106 lpcd in Ranebennur.

In the capital city of Bengaluru, coverage of water taps is 72 per cent and water supply is at 94 lpcd. None of the 27 mission cities in the state have water supply at the norm of 135 lpcd prescribed for urban areas in the country.

Under AMRUT plans for 2015-16, investments to be made in the mission cities in water supply, sewerage, storm water drains and urban transport projects are: Bengaluru - Rs173 crore, Raichur - Rs77 crore, Hubli-Dharwad - Rs75 crore, Bellary - Rs72 crore, Gulbarga - Rs66 crore, Belgavi - Rs60 crore, Bijapur - Rs60 crore, Tumakuru - Rs53 crore, Bhadravati - Rs51 crore, Mysore - Rs50 crore, Davanagere - Rs50 crore, Shivamogga - Rs48 crore, Gadag-Betagiri - Rs45 crore, Bidar - Rs42 crore, Hospeta - Rs38 crore, Chitradurga - Rs34 crore, Hassan - Rs32 crore, Bagalkot - Rs31 crore, Ranebennur - Rs25 crore, Chikkamagaluru - Rs24 crore, Kolar - Rs18 crore, Gangavati - Rs16 crore, Robertsonpet - Rs14 crore, Badami - Rs12.00 crore, Mangalur-Rs3.25 crore.

Under AMRUT, central assistance is provided to the extent of 50 per cent of project cost in case of cities with population of less than 1 million each and up to one third in case of cities with population of above 1 million each.