First round of Amrut funding may be completed by month-end

The Ministry of Urban Development aims to complete the process of disbursing the first round of Central funding under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (Amrut) by the end of this month.

“The Amrut Apex Committee is meeting on Thursday to consider annual action plans of Maharashtra, Bihar and Himachal Pradesh. For Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Karnataka, proposals will be considered on December 15. On December 21, the committee will look at action plans for Goa, Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Sikkim and Tripura,” a senior official in the Ministry of Urban Development told BusinessLine .

It has, so far, approved Amrut Action Plans (2015-16) of 13 States — Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Haryana, Telangana, Jharkhand, Mizoram.

The Ministry has cleared a total of 939 projects for 286 cities in 13 States with most of them related to water supply and sewerage network services. For this, it has released first instalment of Central assistance of ₹1,062.27 crore.

This is a part of total Central assistance of ₹5,311.38 crore committed to 13 States for which the Ministry has approved plans entailing total investment of ₹11,671.76 crore.

With this, 24 States and Union Territories will be covered accounting for most of 497 Amrut cities identified. “Rest of States and Union Territories with one Amrut city each would be considered in more last meeting of the apex committee,” the official added.

The Centre has made a provision of ₹50,000 crore for assisting States to the extent of 50 per cent of project costs in cities with a population below 10 lakh each and one third of the cost if the population is above 10 lakh each. Rest has to be matched by states and urban local bodies.

COMMENT NOW