Residents of a city should decide how the city will grow: PM
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is being briefed about the three schemes in New Delhi on Thursday. (Photo: PTI)
New Delhi: Unveiling three mega flagship urban schemes aimed at developing cities, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said private property developers should not decide how a city should grow, but the residents and the city leadership should.
Mr Modi on Thursday launched the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), Smart Cities Mission, and Housing for All (Urban). Speaking on the occasion, he said, urbanisation should be viewed as an opportunity and urban centres should be viewed as growth engines.
“Under these schemes we can go ahead and the Centre and states can do it together. India is rapidly urbanising and every year Hindustan gives birth to a small country,” Mr Modi said.
Under the AMRUT scheme, 500 cities will be developed, besides 100 smart cities to be built over five years. Housing for all envisages construction of 2 crore houses in urban areas in the next seven years.
Smart city will be selected through a competition among cities while 500 cities are being identified under the AMRUT scheme. Elaborating the smart city programme, Mr Modi said , “For the first time in India, a challenge is being floated, in which citizens of urban India can contribute in the formulation of development visions of their cities. The cities which are able to competitively meet the required parameters will be developed as smart cities.”
He said that the competitive mechanism would end the top-down approach, and lead to people-centric urban development. Calling upon people’s participation in urban planning, Mr Modi said, “There is a lack of holistic vision about urban planning, and expansion is driven not by the administrators of a city, but by property developers.”
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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