City loses goodies from Centre

City loses goodies from Centre
Deccan Herald

Is Bangalore losing out the first round of goodies doled out by the Centre under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, (JN-NURM)? Seems so.

Is Bangalore losing out the first round of goodies doled out by the Centre under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, (JN-NURM)? Seems so.

It is learnt that Centre has asked the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike to prepare a fresh City Development Strategy Plan (CDSP) contrary to the earlier reports that only some changes were sought in the Rs 10,799 crore plan BMP had prepared.

Meanwhile the Central Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee on JN-NURM has recently sanctioned about Rs 500 crore for infrastructure projects to be taken up in cities like Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Indore, Surat and Rajkot.

BMP Commissioner K Jothiramalingam told Deccan Herald that ‘Urban First’ – the consultants who prepared the Rs 10,799 crore CDSP have not made it to the empanelled consultants team of the Government of India, and “we have been therefore asked to give a fresh CDSP”. The fresh plan is being prepared by iDeCK (Infrastructure Development Corporation of Karnataka).

iDeCK is among the Centre’s empanelled consultants, he said.

Interestingly, officials are speaking of a fresh report only now. In January, Mr S M Acharya, Additional Secretary, Union Ministry of Urban Development was in Bangalore for a workshop on JN-NURM where he had made no mention of a fresh plan; but only noted that the BMP had been directed to include its financial data also in the Rs10,799 crore plan.

When the JN-NURM was officially launched in December 2005, Bangalore was reportedly the only city to be ready with a CDSP. Urban First had prepared it for the BMP based on the draft guidelines of the mission.

Queried whether Bangalore has lost the race or if the precious time and financial resources were wasted, the BMP commissioner said, “a majority of the fresh report has inputs from the first plan”.

PUBLIC HEARINGS

Public hearings on Bangalore’s infrastructure projects and basic services to its poor population are round the corner. The BMP will hold them in May before finalising the City Strategy Development Plan for projects to be taken up under JN-NURM. Interestingly the Ward Committees which have been reported to be plagued by lack of transparency, political interference will play major role in these hearings. One public hearing will be held in each of the 30 ward committee areas of the BMP, Commissioner K Jothiramalingam said.