‘AMRUT Plus Scheme to speed up urbanisation’

Third anniversary of PMAY, Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation & Smart Cities Mission celebrated

LUCKNOW: As growing number of cities are aspiring to have facilities on the lines of ‘smart cities’, an ‘AMRUT Plus’ scheme may be introduced to speed up urbanisation, union minister of state for housing and urban affairs Hardeep Singh Puri said on Friday.

“This is my personal opinion. But keeping in view the demand from all corners of the country, I think this will be an extension of AMRUT scheme,” Puri said, addressing a programme ‘Transforming Urban Landscape’ to mark the third anniversary of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), and smart cities mission.

Underthesmartcitiesmission, 100 cities were to be selected and the list is complete with Shillong being the 100th city selected in June 2018.

“I still get demands for better infrastructure from across the country. I can say people are willing to become smart,” he said.

Puri said while the smart cities mission incorporated cities with over one lakh population, the AMRUT Plus scheme would incorporate cities with population between 50,000 and 1,00,000.

Speaking on the progress of AMRUT scheme, Puri said it transformed the way urbanisation was taken up by the governments in the past.

“UP’s success is central to overall progress of the country,” he said. “Under PMAY, the target was to build 11 million houses of which 5.4 million have been sanctioned. Construction of at least 4.5 lakh houses have been sanctioned in UP,” Puri added.

“Maintaining the current pace of urbanisation, we need to create urban space of around 900 sq kms every year. This is something like creating one Chicago in a year,” Puri said.

UP chief secretary Anoop Chandra Pandey said due to poor rate of urbanisation (21% against 31% in the country) in UP there was much scope for work and the government was ready to take to the second stage.

“Well managed urbanisation can be the pillar of growth,” said Pandey.

SUBHANKAR CHAKRABORTY/ HT PHOTO ▪ Minister for housing and urban affairs, government of India, Hardeep Singh Puri and urban development minister Suresh Khanna presenting certificates for good performance under PMAY, AMRUT and Smart Cities Mission schemes at the event ‘Transforming Urban Landscape’ organised at Indira Gandhi Pratishthan, Lucknow, on Friday.