|
The first meeting of the newly constituted consultative committee attached to the Ministry of Urban Development was held today. Minister for Urban Development, Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad in his opening remarks said that the condition of our cities are on the verge of collapse due to overpopulation, unchecked migration, poverty, proliferation of slums, environmental pollution, low urban productivity and urged the parliamentarians to spend more time on these issues both inside and outside Parliament. He also observed that one of the critical issue before the country are financial and managerial needs of cities and the problem of slums and squatters. He explained to the members about the rapid progress in DMRC project and the recent decisions to make NCR Planning Board to play proactive role in development of infrastructure in the region.
Expressing concern over the infrastructural needs of cities having population between 5 lakh to 40 lakh which are not covered under IDSMT and Mega city schemes of the ministry, Shri Azad indicated that the schemes are being revamped in consultation with Planning Commission and Ministry of Finance so that all the towns and cities are covered under a unified scheme. Referring to the new initiatives taken by Shri Azad said that final shape is being given to the Pooled Finance Development Fund, National Urban Information system, mitigation of drinking water shortage in cities, particularly in southern states by setting up desalination plants and e-governance in municipalities. He also said that the ministry has released the entire 10% lumpsum budget provision for creation of vital infrastructure projects in North Eastern states including Sikkim for the last three years.
A power point presentation on various projects of the ministry was made in the meeting. Reacting to the queries of members present, Shri Azad said that a meeting of ministers of Urban Development, Finance Ministers and Chief Secretaries of state governments will be held shortly to work out the modalities of financing Metro Rail Projects in some of the capitals and ruled out the possibility of adopting the funding pattern of DMRC.
Referring to the drinking water problem in the country Shri Azad said that in the last 15 years only about 1000 crores have been spent on this and the government is working on the feasibility of increasing the allocation for this and also to revamp accelerated urban water supply programme which is meant for towns with less than 20,000 population. Regarding solid waste management in cities and towns Shri Azad announced that he would be visiting Vijayawada and Hyderabad shortly to examine the feasibility of adopting the power generation projects using solid waste.
Members present in the meeting included Shri Prasanta Chatterjee, Shri Swadesh Chakraborty, Shri Sajjan Kumar, Smt. Prema Cariappa, Shri Karnendu Bhattacharya, Shri Narayan Swamy, Shri G.K. Vasan, Smt. Krishna Tirath, Shri Lalmuni Choubey, Shri N.Y. Hanumanthapan, and Shri Tufani Saroj. Senior officials of Ministry of Urban Development, DDA, MCD, NCRPB, L&DO, NBCC were also present.
|
