On a visit to the city, Union Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri on Saturday gave assurance that Gurugram will be considered for inclusion in the Smart City Mission and an apex body would be constituted for this purpose. He lauded the steps taken by Haryana under various Central flagship missions for urban development.
Puri gave the assurance while responding to the specific request made by Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal to include Gurugram in the Smart City Mission for which Central technical assistance is required whereas financial implications would be looked after by the state government.
Manohar Lal made the request while speaking at a review meeting of various flagship missions of the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs held under the chairmanship of Puri here. These flagship missions include AMRUT, Smart City Mission, Swachchh Bharat Mission and Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.
When Puri asked the Chief Minister to conduct credit rating of cities in Haryana, he responded that it was being done along with credit rating of villages.
Speaking at the meeting, Haryana Urban Local Bodies Minister Kavita Jain said survey had been conducted in all 80 cities of the State under the Shehri Awas Yojana, and 3.23 lakh applications had been received. As many as 93 slums have been selected in 20 towns for coverage under the In-Situ Slum Rehabilitation.
The State-level sanctioning-cum-monitoring committee (SLSMC) has given approval to 65 towns under the housing for all scheme and proposals for 56 towns have been sent to the Central Government for approval. These would be approved soon. A detailed project report (DPR) for 77,511 beneficiaries in 66 towns has been approved by the SLSMC, she added.
Principal Secretary, Urban Local Bodies Department, Anand Mohan Sharan, said the Central Government had approved DPRs on 28 cities and submission of DPRs on 38 cities was under process. Apart from this, DPRs on 14 cities would be submitted by February 28, 2018.
Sharan said street lights in 80 cities were being replaced with LED lights. The work of replacing street lights with LED lights has started in Gurugram and this task would be finalised in other cities as well by February 15.