Smart Cities Mission: 8 smart cities in North East are in bottom 15

The extended deadline of Smart Cities Mission (SCM) will come to an end in June 2024. Till December 2023, almost half of the Smart City projects in northeast region were at work order stage. Official data also highlights that of 15 Smart Cities at the bottom of ranking, eight are from Northeast region. The region has total ten smart cities including eight state capitals of the region.

“Out of total number of 360 projects worth Rs. 7737 crores, almost half i.e., 163 projects worth Rs. 5305 crores are at work order stage. In Shillong and Gangtok, only four and six projects are complete while works on 17 and 38 projects are still going on respectively, (As of December 2023)” states a report titled “ Smart Cities Mission: An Evaluation” of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Housing and Urban Affairs. The parliamentary committee presented its report to both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha on February 8, 2024.

The data shows among 100 smart cities in the country Guwahati is ranked 96, Imphal-97, Gangtok-95, Aizawl-94, Shillong-93, Itangar-92, Agartala-89, Pasighat-86. Kohima is the best performing smart city in the region and is ranked 59 followed by Namchi which is ranked 72.

The 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 2023, adds the report.

The central government launched the SCM projects in 100 cities on June25, 2015 with the objective of promoting cities that provide core infrastructure, clean and sustainable environment and give a decent quality of life to their citizens through the application of smart solutions.

“Overall, the performance of the scheme in North-Eastern States appears to be dismal despite altered funding pattern,” observed the parliamentary committee.

The Ministry apprised the committee that none of smart cities in the northeast region has the capacity to execute projects involving cost Rs 1000 crore due to which the Ministry had decided to allocate Rs 500 crores and asked the state governments to contribute Rs 50 crore each matching the funding pattern of 90:10.

Earlier on July 1, 2023, Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh while inaugurating the "Purvoday" Conclave showcasing incredible transformation in Northeast during the last 9 years stated that “Prime Minister Narendra Modi had visited the North-East more around 60 times in the last 9 years, while his Council of Ministers have also visited the North-East more than 400 times. And if there were no COVID the PM might have visited 100 times.”

About the overall implementation of SCM in the country, the committee observed: “Investments worth Rs.2,05,018 crore have been proposed in 100 Smart Cities as a part of their smart city plans. Out of the total proposed investment of Rs. 41,022 crore, i.e., 21% funds were envisaged from Public-Private Partnership (PPP). However, half of the Smart Cities could not undertake any project under PPP model. Out of 7970 projects worth of Rs.170,400 crore, cities have taken up 207 projects worth Rs.10,794 crore only which is 6% of their total cost under PPP.”

Sushanta Talukdar