PANAJI
Marred by faulty prioritisation of projects, delayed completion work and putting public to continuous hardship, Goa has managed to complete only 57 per cent of the total projects, most of them being beautification works under the Centre’s ambitious Smart City Mission since 2016.
Seven years after Panaji was selected to be developed as ‘Smart City’, the Union Ministry for Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) said that only 28 projects have been completed till November end.
According to the information provided by the Minister for State for MoHUA Kushal Kishore, of the total 49 projects sanctioned to the Imagine Panaji Smart City Development Ltd (IPSCDL) under the Smart Cities Mission, only 28 minor projects at a cost of Rs 390.72 crore are completed.
Currently, there are 21 ongoing projects at an estimated cost of Rs 663.05 crore. 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.
The total cost of the projects is around Rs 1,053 crore of which the centre has released around Rs 631.80 crore to IPSCDL, who has so far utilized Rs 548.91 cr.
In the Goa budget 2023-24, a provision of another Rs 150 crore has been made for the ongoing Smart City projects.
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, implement smart parking, and other projects.
A number of state parastatal agencies such as GSIDC, GSUDA, PWD, WRD, including IPSCDL are the executing agencies for specialised projects under the Smart Cities Mission. IPSCDL is the nodal agency under which all these projects are being monitored and funded.
