Key Points

Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs, Tokhan Sahu, in a written reply, said that a total of 8,063 projects, amounting to Rs 1.64 lakh crore were sanctioned for the 100 cities.

Tokhan Sahu said cities under the Smart Cities Mission have been developed based on Smart City Proposals (SCPs) received from States and Union Territories across various sectors including smart mobility, water, sanitation, hygiene (WASH), smart governance, smart energy and environment, duly approved by the High Powered Steering Committee.

He said that under the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U), launched on October 2, 2014 with the objective of an Open Defecation Free (ODF) India and for scientific processing of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) generated in urban areas, the total financial outlay of the States and UTs for the entire Mission Period is Rs 62,009 crore, including committed Central Assistance of Rs 14,623 crore.

Sahu said Under SBM-U 2.0, the total financial outlay of the States and UTs for the entire Mission Period is Rs 1.41 lakh crore, including committed Central Assistance of Rs 36,465 crore.

The SBM-U 2.0 was launched on October 1, 2021 for a period of five years, to carry forward the progress made in SBM-U, he said.

The MoS highlighted the achievements in the urban transport sector and said, at present, about 1,055 km of metro rail network (including 55 km of RRTS network) is operational in 24 cities across the country.

Since June 2024 to date, the Central government has sanctioned Metro Projects costing more than Rs 1 lakh crore for construction of almost 240 kms of metro network. In the country, 1.1 crore passengers are travelling daily by Metros, he said.

Talking about the PM-eBus Sewa Scheme, the MoS said this scheme was launched on August 16, 2023 to augment city bus operations in urban areas with Central Assistance of Rs 20,000 crore for deploying 10,000 electric buses on the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model.

As per the guidelines, cities with a population between 3-40 lakh and other State/UT Capitals with less than 3 lakh population as per Census 2011 are eligible to participate in the scheme, he said.

- IANS