Economic growth inevitably leads to an increase in urbanization, as cities and towns provide large economies of agglomeration for individual activity. Urban Development implies providing civic amenities to the citizens living in urban areas. Keeping in view the 74th Constitutional Amendment, it also means empowering the urban local bodies to enable them to become financially sustainable democratic institutions in providing good quality civic services.

The Vision of the Ministry of Urban Development, is “to create economically vibrant, inclusive, efficient and sustainable cities”. The Mission of the Ministry is “to promote cities as engines of economic growth through improvement in the quality of life of urban citizens by creating quality urban infrastructure, improved service levels and efficient governance.”

In terms of Constitutional provisions, local governance is a State subject, which, in its scope, includes both providing civic amenities to the citizens as well as empowering the urban local bodies. Although the ultimate accountability for delivery of urban development rests with the State Governments in the Indian Federal Structure, the Central Government pilots the macro- planning and financial resource for upgrading the urban infrastructure. The Ministry, through its programmes and schemes, seeks to address these issues, inter-alia by providing financial support to the States conditional to undertaking of reforms in the State.

Mission Mode
In order to address the long felt need of cities and towns to augment infrastructure facilities to the people including those living in slums & poor localities in a holistic manner, JNNURM was launched on 3rd December 2005. A Mission Mode approach was adopted in a time bound manner in selected 63 cities, to provide reforms-linked central assistance to State Governments for development of urban infrastructure. It includes cities with 4 million plus population (7), cities with 1 million plus but less than 4 million population (28) and other selected cities like State Capitals and cities of religious/historic and Touristic importance (28) . During 2009, two more cities, i.e. Tirupati and Porbandar were included as Mission cities, taking the total number of Mission cities to 65.

The Mission Statement of JNNURM is “Reforms driven, fast track, planned development of identified cities with focus on efficiency in urban infrastructure/services delivery mechanism, community participation and accountability of Urban Local Bodies /parastatals towards citizens.”

The Mission comprises two submissions, Sub-Mission I for Urban Infrastructure and Governance (UIG) and Submission II for Basic Services for the Urban Poor (BSUP). The Ministry of Urban Development has the responsibility for UIG, while the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation has the responsibility for BSUP.

The duration of the Mission is seven years (w.e.f. 2005-2006). The thrust of the UIG component is major infrastructure projects relating to water supply, including sanitation, sewerage, solid waste management, road network, urban transport and redevelopment of inner old city areas with a view to upgrading infrastructure therein, shifting industrial/commercial establishments to conforming areas etc.

The conditions for assistance under JNNURM are :

ï‚· Cities should have elected bodies in position

ï‚· The State Governments and the Urban Local Bodies (ULB) including parastatal agencies should execute Memoranda of Agreement (MoA) with the Government indicating their commitment (with milestones) to undertake reforms.

ï‚· All mandatory and optional reforms shall be implemented within the Mission period.

So far 515 projects at a cost of Rs.58038.18 crores have been approved by the Central Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee (CSMC) under UIG. CSMC approves both the projects and reviews the progress of the Programme. During 2009, the seven year allocation for Additional Central Assistance (ACA) for Urban Infrastructure and Governance (UIG) component was increased from Rs 25,500 crore to Rs 31,500 crore. The allocation for UIG for 2009-2010 is Rs 5960.13 crore, against which, till 31st Dec, 2009, ACA released was Rs 2857.27 crore.

Stimulus Package

Further, as part of the Second Stimulus package for the economy, purchase of buses for public transport was permitted under JNNURM in a time bound manner for the Mission Cities. So far, a total of 15260 buses have been approved for 61 Mission cities at a total cost of Rs.4723.94 crore, out of which total admissible Central Assistance would be Rs.2092.15 crore

During 2008-2009, the seven year allocation for the Urban Infrastructure Development for Small and Medium Towns (UIDSSMT) component was raised from an initial Rs 6400 crore to Rs 11,400 crore for enabling the Centre to consider the 'backlog' of projects which the State Governments had recommended to the Central Government.

Since the launch of the Mission in December 2005, significant progress has been achieved in triggering reforms in the urban sector across the country. So far, the overall progress made in implementation of the reforms at State level and ULB level, is more than 50% of the reforms committed till the fourth year. Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh have shown good progress. The achievements are that 30 cities have migrated to double entry accrual based accounting system, 16 cities have achieved 85% coverage in property tax collection, 46 cities have internal earmarking of funds for services to urban poor and 20 States have taken steps to establish District Planning Committees. The cities of Visakhapatnam, Nashik, Pune, Mumbai , Chennai and Madurai have achieved 100 % cost recovery in Water Supply. Stamp duty has been reduced to 5% in Goa, Gujarat, Chattisgarh, Orissa, Rajasthan Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Sikkim, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh and Puducherry, and enhanced community participation in development programmes has happened by enacting Community Participation Law in 11 states and Public Disclosure Law in 17 states. (PIB Features)