Mangalore mayor Praveen Kumar said the Centre can waive the population parameters if it makes up its mind.
This coastal city will have to wait for nine more years to receive funds under the Jawaharalal Nehru National Urban Reconstruction Mission (JNNURM).
The eligibility for a city to get the funds is to have a population of 10 lakh. Mangalore will have this population only in 2021.
The mission’s funds are available only to two cities in the state, Bangalore and Mysore. The population reached 10 lakh in Mysore in 2005 and this enabled the city to receive the funds from 2006-07.
In the case of Mangalore, the Mangalore Urban Development Authority (MUDA) and Mangalore City Corporation (MCC) appear to be sticking to the population census figures and they have not applied to the government to get funds from the mission.
“According to the census figures of 2011, the population coming under the jurisdiction of MUDA was 648,434. The area under this jurisdiction extends from the Kerala-Karnataka border to Mulky, covering 30,800 hectares. Of this, only 24,255 hectares was reserved for urban development. In our estimation, Mangalore is a sparsely populated city and the central government will not accede to our appeals for bringing Mangalore into the mission’s map,” said Ramesh S, chairman of MUDA.
The MCC, however, has a different point of view.
Mangalore mayor Praveen Kumar said it is possible for the Union government to waive the population parameters if it wanted to include Mangalore under funding scheme.
“They should start looking at Mangalore as a city that has potential to grow faster than Mysore and other tier-II cities in the state. The criterion should not be population but investment in industry, service and other sectors and, most importantly, the need for urban reconstruction in anticipation of growth in population,” Kumar said.
Officials in the state urban development ministry said that Mangalore qualifies in all respects except population.
The JNNURM committee has indicated that liberalisation policies adopted by the Centre are expected to increase the share of urban population to 40% of total population by 2021.
It was estimated that by 2011, urban areas would contribute about 65% of gross domestic product.
However, this higher productivity is contingent upon the availability and quality of infrastructure services which has not happened in
Mangalore.
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