NGOs criticise urban mission

A seminar on "Challenges to the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission" organized by Hazards Centre, concludes in New Delhi, reports HT Correspondent.

A two-day national seminar on "Challenges to the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM)" organized by Hazards Centre, a civil society organization, concluded in the Capital on Sunday.

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Representatives of activist groups and civil society organizations from 17 cities covered under the JNNURM felt the mission was a subterfuge to foist the agenda of market-driven urban reforms on all state governments without any democratic debate or public discussion.

Dunu Roy of citizen's group Hazards Centre, which organized the seminar, said that at the level of implementation, the major share of the funds from the mission was going towards road widening, water, and sanitation programmes, and that too in the cities of the four states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh.

The representatives said a citizen's review of the mission would be conducted to challenge the scheduled mid-term review by the Urban Development Ministry. A Citizen's Toolkit will be formulated and distributed among all those citizen's groups willing to conduct such a review in their city.