Smart city projects for Jaipur, Udaipur to take off next month: Venkaiah Naidu
TOWARDS A BETTER FUTURE 50% of projects envisaged for Ajmer and Kota will enter the implementation stage
Union urban development minister Venkaiah Naidu on Tuesday said that all the projects envisaged under smart city plans for Jaipur and Udaipur will take off by next month and 50% of projects in Ajmer and Kota would enter implementation stage.
He was addressing the media in Jaipur after holding a review of the implementation and progress of new urban missions in Rajasthan. Chief minister Vasundhara Raje was also present .
Rajasthan is among the 11 states in the country implementing all six urban missions, including the heritage city development and augmentation yojana with the inclusion of Ajmer under this mission. “Rajasthan is the first major state to have got smart city plans approved for all the four mission cities in just two rounds of competition. Smart city plans of Jaipur and Udaipur got approved in the first batch of 20 smart cities and of Ajmer and Kota in the second round of competition even as one more round is currently underway,” he said.
Naidu said in the recent cleanliness survey, urban areas of Rajasthan got low rankings. “This was on account of the higher weightage given to ODF (open defecation free) status. The chief minister has assured that all the 190 cities and towns would be made open defecation free at the earliest,” he said.
Rajasthan has started implementation of 75% of investments approved under Atal mission for the years 2015-16 and 2016-17. Also, implementation of other projects will begin soon, he said.
The state government has also been asked to submit a detailed project report (DPR) on making a vehicle-free pedestrian zone in the old city of Jaipur.
The Rajasthan government is taking up urban development projects with an investment of over ₹30,000 crore under new urban missions and on their own for implementation by 2020. This comes to an investment of over ₹25,000 per head in urban areas, which is among the highest in the country. The central government has already approved assistance of about ₹5,000 crore under Atal mission, Smart Cities Mission, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, HRIDAY and housing mission.
“Under Atal Mission, an investment of ₹3,224 crore has been approved for improving urban infrastructure in the 29 mission cities that account for a population of over one crore with 22 lakh urban households,” he said. Under the smart city mission, investment of about ₹7,000 crore has been approved for Jaipur, Udaipur, Ajmer and Kota.