Rs.8745 Cr for `Total Urban Revamp Plan’

Chandigarh, September 9, 2012: The Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal today approved Rs.8,745 crore ‘Total Urban Revamp Plan’ to upgrade all civic services in all 142 cities of Punjab on an integrated turnkey basis plan.

The novel feature of the plan is thar for a town single agency would lay the all civic services with a mandate to maintain them in top condition for next 10-15 years.

In a high level meeting with Local Government Minister Chunni Lal Bhagat and Forests Minister Surjit Kumar Jyani late last night, the Deputy Chief Minister  gave final touches to the multi thousand crore mega urban renewal vision that besides bringing timelines for execution of the projects would also bring an element of accountability in it.

Presiding over the meeting Badal asked Principal Secretary Local Government to stagger development of 142 cities in five years and a single urban development agency should execute all civic amenities work including laying and maintaining the sewerage network, water supply network, laying of internal roads and their upgradation, street lighting, maintaining of greenery and parks on turnkey basis.

Adding, he said that over bridges to be constructed in next 5 years within the city besides other traffic engineering improvement works would also be carried out by that Agency.  He said that purpose of execution of all urban renewal projects by single agency was to bring synergy in execution of urban development works and make a single agency accountable for execution and maintenance of the services. He said that the agency would also be responsible for 10-15 years of maintenance and upkeep of all these services.

Focusing on fixing the timeline for execution of the mega project and adherence to the timeline, Badal suggested that they must have a special Mission Director who would be responsible in getting this project of 142 cities executed. The meeting also tied up funds for next 5 years and distribution of funds to different phases of the project.

It was informed in the meeting that 88% of urban areas were getting water supply and for 100% coverage Rs.980 crore would be required whereas Rs.2759 crore were required to execute to complete remaining 37% sewerage network in the cities.

Similarly, Rs.2,300 crore were required for sewerage treatment plants whereas Rs.1476 crore were required for roads and parks. The meeting earmarked Rs.730 crore for slum development and housing whereas Rs.500 crore was set aside for fire fighting services.

Stressing the need for making all cities slum free, Badal earmarked Rs.564.66 crores for this mega project. It was decided in the meeting to sanction Rs.215.57 crore for housing urban poor in the major cities.

It was informed that 5728 houses for slum dwellers being constructed at the cost of Rs.149.22 crore at Ludhiana would be completed by March 2013 whereas 1648 houses at Amritsar to be constructed at the cost of Rs.66.35 crore would be completed by March 2013. Similarly, houses for slum dwellers in Rajpura at the cost of Rs.30 crore would be completed by December this year whereas 3680 houses would be constructed at Jalandhar at the cost of Rs.42.40 crore and these would be completed by December this year.

Further, the meeting was informed that 5328 houses in Mansa and Bathinda district are being constructed at cost of Rs.253 crores whereas 542 dwelling units in Jalalabad would be constructed at the cost Rs.12.04 crore. 79 dwelling units in Bathinda would be completed at the cost of Rs.11.65 crore.

Badal said that his mission was to providing world class basic civic amenities to all urbanities including poorest of the poor so that they could live quality life. He said that Punjab Urban Development Mission (PUDM) was focused on making cities slum free besides providing world class infrastructure resources for infrastructure and simultaneously improving governance and citizen centric issues. The meeting decided to launch a campaign to regularise unauthorized water supply and sewerage connection under a separate scheme.

Focusing on reforms in urban development sector it was decided to simplify issuance of CLU and making statuary amendment in the laws.

It was decided to bring 162 services under e-governance and provide time bound service to the citizens to make their lives easy.

Badal said that he was focusing on making Punjab clean and economically sustainable by providing all citizen centric services in a time bound manner. He said that urban areas of Punjab are all set to get facelift with linking of all major towns with 4/6 laned road network and achievement of vision of surplus power.

Prominent amongst those who were present in the meeting included Suresh Kumar, Principal Secretary Local Government, Manvesh Singh Sidhu and Ajay Kumar Mahajan, Special Principal Secretaries to Deputy Chief Minister.