The government has constituted a committee under chief secretary R K Srivastava who is also the secretary, urban development, to enable Goa to avail of benefits under the recently launched smart city scheme. Panaji, Vasco and Margao have qualified in the first round of the scheme, and will have to compete with other cities in the country to get funding, in the second round.
Under the smart city scheme, a selected city will get funding of 500 crore distributed over five years. An official from the urban development department, said they will submit a proposal to the Union ministry of urban development requesting it to consider three cities— Vasco, Margao and Panaji—as one unit and leave them from out from the competition, as a special case.
When asked whether their proposal will be accepted by the Union ministry, he said they had spoken to ministry officials on the issue earlier. If it is not accepted, they will have to compete to get funds in round two.
As regards to the other scheme, Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) that replaced the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), he said they will be able to avail of services of empanelled consultants of the Union ministry for preparing projects under the new scheme.
Though the JNNURM remained in operation for almost nine years, Goa failed to avail of funds under it. Though the fund-starved Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) tried to get funding under JNNURM, only two of its detailed project reports (DPR) got sanctioned—one for e-governance and the other pertaining to 24-hour water supply for Panaji and laying of a new pipeline.
The work of laying pipelines is under way in the city. An official who is in the know of things, said the government will have to fund the remaining portion of the project as the JNNURM project has been concluded. The PWD executing the project has so far got just one installment.
The e-governance project never kicked off as time was lost in tendering— the first tender floated was revoked, and before the second one could be floated, the JNNURM scheme was terminated.
A government official said it means CCP will receive no funds for e-governance under the earlier project, and if it wishes to have the project, it will have to reapply under AMRUT.
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Quelle/Source: The Times of India, 11,07,2015
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