No smart cities mission 2.0: MoHUA minister of state tells LS
A second edition of the SCM was recommended by a parliamentary committee in its report tabled in both Houses of Parliament in February
New Delhi: There is no proposal for a second edition of the Union government’s flagship Smart Cities Mission (SCM), Tokhan Sahu, minister of state, ministry of housing and urban affairs (MoHUA), said on Thursday in a reply to a question in Lok Sabha.
Sahu was replying to a question asked by Congress MP S Jothimani from Karur in Tamil Nadu.
A second edition of the SCM was recommended by a parliamentary committee in its report tabled in both Houses of Parliament in February. The standing committee’s report on housing and urban affairs’ stated that the mission should be expanded to a second phase focusing on second-tier cities to decongest state capitals. The committee said these cities should be located within 50-100 km of the capital and tourist cities.
MoHUA officials were unavailable for comment on the minister’s reply in Lok Sabha on Thursday.
Sahu’s reply comes after earlier this month, the Centre extended the SCM until March 2025 to ensure that the remainder of the projects gets finished.
In a statement, the government then said that the extension was made based on the request of several state governments and local urban bodies. With this, the deadline for the mission was extended for the third time.
The stated objective of the SCM is to promote sustainable and inclusive cities that provide core infrastructure and give their citizens a good quality of life, a clean and sustainable environment, and the application of ‘smart’ solutions. The ministry said that for the entire mission, the government had allocated Rs.48,000 crore for the 100 cities, and Rs.46,585 crore (97%) had been released to the cities.
In a reply to a related question on the SCM in the Lok Sabha on Thursday, Sahu said as of July 12, a total of 8.016 projects valued at Rs.1,64,223 crore have been tendered out for execution and out of them, 7,218 projects (90%) amounting to Rs.1,45,083 crore have been completed.
Uttar Pradesh and Telangana have the highest number of projects under implementation, with 63 and 57, respectively. These states are followed by Punjab (39), Puducherry (36), Tamil Nadu (27) and Rajasthan (21).
The government has maintained that the SCM has attempted several innovative deployments of technology and digital solutions to improve urban governance. However, questions have been asked about the “smartness” of the mission.
The India Infrastructure Report (IIR) 2023 released by the ministry’s think tank NIUA noted that while the mission promised to “smarten” Indian cities to be on the same level as cities in the global north, the SCM in India ended up primarily undertaking conventional projects of existing infrastructure of water supply, mobility, and other existing municipal functions. Even the Economic Survey 2024 noted that a chunk of funds were spent in the conventional sectors of waste, sanitation and hygiene, and public spaces.