Saturday, February 3, 2018
  • Chandigarh, Feb 3–The Union Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs, Mr. Hardeep Singh Puri, has given the assurance that Gurugram would be considered for inclusion in the Smart City Mission and an apex body would be constituted for this purpose. He lauded the steps taken by Haryana under various Central flagship missions for urban development.
  • Mr Puri gave the assurance while responding to the specific request made by the Chief Minister, Mr Manohar Lal, to include Gurugram in the Smart City Mission for which Central technical assistance is required whereas financial implications would be looked after by the state government.
  • The Chief Minister made the request while speaking at a review meeting of various flagship missions of the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs held under the chairmanship of Mr Puri, here today. These flagship missions include AMRUT, Smart City Mission, Swachh Bharat Mission and Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.
  • When Mr Puri asked the Chief Minister to conduct credit rating of cities in Haryana, he responded that it was being done along with credit rating of villages.
  • Speaking at the meeting, the Haryana Urban Local Bodies, Mrs. Kavita Jain, said survey had been conducted in all 80 cities of the state under the Shehri Awas Yojana, and 3.23 lakh applications had been received. As many as 93 slums have been selected in 20 towns for coverage under the In-Situ Slum Rehabilitation.
  • The State Level Sanctioning-Cum-Monitoring Committee (SLSMC) has given approval to 65 towns under the Housing for All Scheme and proposals for 56 towns have been sent to the Central Government for approval. These would be approved soon. A Detailed Project Report (DPR) for 77,511 beneficiaries in 66 towns has been approved by the SLSMC, she added.
  • Principal Secretary, Urban Local Bodies Department, Mr. Anand Mohan Sharan, said the Central Government had approved DPRs on 28 cities and submission of DPRs on 38 cities was under process. Apart from this, DPRs on 14 cities would be submitted by February 28, 2018.
  • Mr. Sharan said street lights in 80 cities were being replaced with LED lights. The work of replacing street lights with LED lights has started in Gurugram and this task would be finalised in other cities as well by February 15, 2018, he added.
  • The meeting was informed that 14 clusters had been made to cover all 81 urban local bodies under the Integrated Solid Waste Management. Door-to-door garbage collection has started. Ten clusters have stitched schemes for making compost from waste and four clusters have evolved schemes for power generation from waste.
  • Appreciating these steps taken by the state government, the Union Minister of State said though the Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi, had fixed the target of declaring entire country ODF by October 2, 2019, this target would be achieved by October 2, 2018. Mr Manohar Lal informed him that entire Haryana has been declared ODF.
  • Under the AMRUT scheme, water supply, sewerage, drainage, green area and urban transportation was reviewed. Under this Mission, 18 ULBs of Haryana have been selected.
  • Action plan for survey of street vendors in various municipal corporation, municipal councils and municipalities of Ambala, Gurugram, Hisar and Rohtak clusters, is being prepared. In the first phase, Town Vending Committees for 31 towns have been constituted and survey would be completed in three phases by May 31, 2018.