The ambitious Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewable Mission (JNNURM) was meant to turn cities such as Mumbai into Shanghai, but that hasn’t happened even after four years.
The ambitious Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewable Mission (JNNURM) was meant to turn cities such as Mumbai into Shanghai, but that hasn’t happened even after four years. Crores of rupees have already been spent.
A mid-term appraisal conducted by the Planning Commission of the flagship programme of the government said that the scheme has been a failure in terms of restructuring state administrations, a mandatory norm to improve the implementation of infrastructure projects in cities.
“Though four years of the scheme have passed, only some reforms have taken place while many are pending,” said the Planning Commission report. Only 10 states have transferred the 12th schedule of the Constitution. Only 20 states have constituted district planning committees. The process of constituting Metropolitan Planning Committees has been completed only by four states.
“Most states have failed to promote devolution of power and push local accountability reforms,” a senior official of the Planning Commission said.
In JNNURM, there are 65 cities that have to implement changes that reflect transparency in the system. Of these, only 13 have declared completion of e-governance and 30 have shifted to double-entry accounting. Only 13 states have transferred water supply and sanitation to district bodies.
The mid-term review also found that in areas such as collection of property tax, water supply cost recovery, rent control and transfer of city panning function, many of the tough reforms were pending.
While there is a demand from states for doubling the planned expenditure for the scheme, the Centre said it has no money left for the scheme.
The government’s flagship programme for urban development was launched in December 2005 with a commitment of Rs 50,000 crore to part-fund urban projects over a period of seven years.
The urban development ministry said the overall reforms progress under JNNURM has indicated so far that only 56% of state-level reforms committed till 4th year (2008-09) have been achieved, 50% of urban local bodies level reforms and 57% of optional reforms committed till fourth year have been achieved.
States such as Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh have shown good progress in urban sector reforms.
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