PANAJI
With four months to go for the March 2025 deadline set by the Centre, the Goa government has still got around 27 per cent of the Smart City Mission work to be completed. Almost 13 major projects worth Rs 460 crore are on-going.
Seven years after Panaji was selected to be developed as ‘Smart City’, the Union Ministry for Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) said that only 36 projects, at the cost of Rs 585.55 crore have been completed till November end.
According to the information provided by the Minister for State for MoHUA Manohar Lal Khattar, of the total 49 projects sanctioned to the Imagine Panaji Smart City Development Ltd (IPSCDL) under the Smart Cities Mission, only 36 minor projects are completed.
Citizens are currently facing the brunt of ongoing smart city work due to haphazard digging of roads, which has been going on for more than a year now, leading to traffic jams, roadblocks, caving-in of the roads, etc.
As per the Minister, the total cost of the projects is around Rs 1,053 crore of which the centre and State together have released around Rs 823.50 crore of which, Rs 760 crores have been utilized as on last month.
Of the total Rs 823.50cr, the Centre’s share has been Rs 420 crore.
In May 2016, when the city was picked up under the Mission, IPSCDL had outlined ambitious plans to pedestrianised the church square, WiFi hotspots and CCTV cameras, revitalize Mala lake (only undertaking flood mitigation measures through WRD), implement smart parking, and other projects- however, none have been implemented so far.
The Minister in his reply said that on the request received from various State/UT Governments, the period of Smart City Mission has been extended up to March 31, 2025.
Giving pan-India data, Ministry said that the work orders have been issued in 8,066 projects amounting to Rs 1,64,669 crore, of which 7,352 projects amounting to Rs 1,47,366 crore (i.e. 91% of total projects) have been completed, as per the data provided by 100 Smart Cities.
Thirteen cities have completed all of their projects undertaken in the Smart Cities Mission, followed by forty-eight (48) cities with more than 90% completed projects and another twenty-three (23) cities with more than 75% completed projects. Remaining 714 projects amounting to Rs 17,303 crore are currently in implementation stage.
