Centre commits Rs 2,070 crores under AMRUT for 31 Gujarat cities

In a release issued on April 5, 2018, independent Rajya Sabha MP Parimal Nathwani, has said that the centre has committed a sum of Rs 2,070 crores for the development of 31 cities in Gujarat, including Ahmedabad, Dwarka, Jamnagar, Gandhinagar, Bhavnagar, Bhuj, Godhra, Porbandar, Rajkot, Surat and Vadodara, under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT). The issue was raised in the Rajya Sabha by Nathwani and he had sought a reply from the minister of state for housing and urban affairs, Hardeep Singh Puri. In his reply, tabled in the house, Puri said that the union government had committed financial assistance of Rs 35,989.70 crores, for development of 500 cities nationwide under AMRUT, of which Rs 2,069.96 crores was for 31 cities in Gujarat. The total allocation for the 31 cities is Rs 4,884.42 crores, the reply stated, adding that the rest of the amount would be pooled in by the Gujarat government. It said that Rs 414 crores had already been released by the union government to Gujarat. The minister’s statement informed that as part of the AMRUT mission in Gujarat, projects worth Rs 2,140.55 crores were under implementation, Rs 702.77 crores worth of projects have had their detailed project reports (DPRs) approved while the DPRs of Rs 2041.10 crores worth of projects was being prepared. Explaining the mechanism of funding, the minister’s statement informed that, under AMRUT, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, only approved State Annual Action Plans (SAAPs) submitted by states and union territories, while individual projects were chosen by the respective states and UTs. It said that SAAPs worth Rs 77,640 crores had been approved by the ministry, for the entire duration of the AMRUT mission.