State rapped for not utilising funds

Finally taking cognisance of funds that were unused by the Maharashtra urban development department for the Smart Cities project, the Union urban development ministry has written a letter to the state demanding an explanation.

The Centre and the state government have so far released Rs 442 crore for the ambitious project. However, the funds haven’t been used for past three months, as the state government has failed to spend the money.

Pune and Solapur have been chosen as the state’s smart cities and they were allotted Rs 150 crore and Rs 286 crore respectively in May. On September 2 they were allotting Rs 8 crore each.

The letter from the urban development ministry asked the state government why the funds were not being spent. It also demanded that an action taken report be submitted within a week’s time. “It has been noticed that funds released for the Smart City mission have not been fully transferred to the SPVs (special purpose vehicles) along with the share of grants,” the letter reads.

The state officials have blamed the delay on red tape. “The technical process for the project’s implementation is too tedious. Also, there are no accurate norms for implementing the project, and hence it is taking more time,” an official from the state urban development department said.

Pune’s development plan includes the installation of vehicle health monitoring systems in 1,080 buses, real-time tracking of all the buses by installing GPS, CCTV surveillance and panic buttons, a public information system (PIS) comprising bus guides and LED screens depicting the expected time of arrival and other critical information about all buses and stops, a mobile app and website providing real-time information, and Wi-Fi in 510 buses. The plan also includes improving adaptive traffic signals across 295 signals with a central command centre, also equipped with ‘pedestrian buttons’, smart parking across seven multi-level car parks, intelligent road asset management to improve road conditions, traffic mobile apps and an online portal with live and forecasted traffic and traffic analysis using CCTV feed and mobile GPS.

Solapur has planned e-governance and citizens’ services that would include public information and grievance redressal, electronic service delivery, citizen engagement, video crime watch, transformation of waste to energy and fuel, recycling and reduction, smart water meters and management, water leakage identification and prevention, water quality monitoring, use of renewable resources of energy, and energy-efficient and green buildings.