Stress on urban planning to ease congestion

The Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry, in a bid to address the congestion problem in cities and to reduce the burden on urban infrastructure, has launched Local Area Plan (LAP) and Town Plan Schemes (TPS) for 25 cities in the country, under which the ministry will give Rs 2 crore as central assistance to each city for planned urban expansion.

The cities selected in the first lot are Varanasi, Faridabad, Indore, Greater Vishakhapatnam, Dehradun, Imphal, Gangtok,Guwahati, Vadodara, Indore, Chennai, Bengaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, Warangal, Pune, Jaipur, Patna, Bhubaneshwar, Ranchi, Raipur, Panaji, Shimla, New Kolkata, Srinagar and Aizwal.

Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said, "The central assistance shall be released in three instalments; 20 per cent with submission of preliminary proposal, 40 per cent during submission of draft plan, and remaining 40 per cent during submission of final plan."

Asked if the country will get its first Smart City before 2019 Lok Sabha election, Puri said the project is long-term and does not rely on polls.

Under the scheme, town planning officials would be trained to prepare local area plans to develop these cities in peripheral areas. According to the officials, increasing urban population will result in increased demand for built up space in cities.

Under Amrut 

The scheme, which will be completely sponsored by the Centre, would be implemented under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation scheme.