Solapur, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a slew of projects today, is one of the six worst-performing cities on the Government of India's list of smart cities when it comes to spending the budget meant for the Smart City project .
The other cities that have not done well other than Solapur are Guwahati, Kochi, Ludhiana, Bealgavi (Belgaum) and Davanagere.
In June 2015, the government had launched the Smart City project which aimed at developing 100 cities across the country. For this project, 20 cities, including Solapur, were picked up in January 2016.
According to the project, the Centre will pitch in Rs 100 crore every year for five years for each of the selected cities. An equal amount will have to be contributed by the state or urban local bodies.
Between 2015 and 2018 November, the government released Rs 4,203 crore to these cities. Solapur received Rs 196 crore in the first two years. However, an RTI showed that that the government has not spent a single penny after 2017.
According to the RTI reply received by India Today TV, Solapur was granted Rs 2 crore in the very first year (2015-2016). Next year, between 2016 and 2017, Rs 194 crore were released to Solapur.
However, if one looks at the utilisation of these funds, Solapur is among the worst-performing cities under this project. Solapur has utilised only 14.2 per cent of its funds. Till November 2018, Solapur utilised only Rs 27.81 crore.
Under this project, Solapur City Development Corporation Limited (SCDCL) was set up which installed LED street lights, e-toilets for approximately five lakh pilgrims visiting the Siddheshwar temple and took up a dozen more such projects. However, no major infrastructure project was undertaken in Solapur.
Avinash Dhakane, the municipal commissioner of Solapur, said that the city will not lag behind in its infrastructure work in six months time. He claimed that the reason Solapur did not pick up the infrastructure pace is because planning had taken up lot of time.
Referring to Aesop's tortoise and hare fable, he said, "We have implemented many small projects that make lot of difference in the life of people here. We did try to implement some major projects too like the sewage, water system and over Rs 100-crore road projects but there were lot of issues that cropped up because of which the projects got delayed. All of these projects will begin in the next six months."
The administration had put out tender for the water distribution system improvements as well as the sewage system. However, it did not receive the expected response. Only one company came forward and was given the project.
For the road projects, the tendering process is going on and the administration is hoping to get some good bidders. Apart from this teething problem, Solapur is also lagging behind because of the permissions that had to be sought from Archaeological Society of India to develop areas around the heritage forts.
Dhakane said that the city authority has also been studying the implementation of the Integrated Command and Control Centre installations in other smart cities which is another reason why the development process is delayed.
"There are about 11 systems that will be brought under one common platform like the LED, attendance and payment of salaries of municipal corporation employees etc. All of that will soon be done in Solapur as well. The work for the upgradation of the Indira Gandhi Stadium will see an expenditure of Rs 28 crore to meet the international standards," he said.
However, the bigger question is that when the city has not been able to pick up pace and begin work on the infrastructure projects, will it be able to implement the other projects that the prime minister has now inaugurated?
Dhakne says that the larger projects are now getting started and they will soon pick up pace. "Spending money is not the only criterion for judging if work is being done or not. Ground work is being done. Everything is in place for the projects to start."
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