NEW DELHI: A parliamentary panel has pulled up the housing and urban affairs ministry for poor utilisation of funds under six major schemes, including Smart City , AMRUT and Swachh Bharat . Flagging that only one-fifth of the released amount has been spent under these schemes, the panel expressed concern whether these missions will remain “a distant dream”.

“The committee is concerned to find that as against a total fund allocation of Rs 48,548 crore for the six flagship programmes viz. AMRUT, HRIDAY, Smart Cities, Swachh Bharat, National Urban Livelihood Mission and PM Awas Yojna , the actual utilisation is only 21.6%, ie. Rs 7851 crore out of Rs 36194 crore released since the launch of these schemes,” the parliamentary standing committee on housing and urban affairs said in its report.

According to the report, in case of smart cities, the utilisation is the lowest at 1.8%. TOI had on February 20 first reported how the states were not utilising the funds released by the Centre under these schemes and even the Prime Minister ’s Office had asked whether the amount released was being “parked”.

The panel has highlighted that though a huge share of Rs 12,447 crore has been allocated to AMRUT scheme meant for water supply, sewerage and drainage facilities to 500 cities, the actual utilisation is Rs 2,480 crore which is only 28.74%. Under Swatchh Bharat Mission, about 38% of the released amount has been utilised.

“The committee is unhappy about the actual scenario with respect to the flagship programmes of the government and the trend of central funds not being utilised. They are apprehensive that, at this pace, the realisation of almost all the above well-meaning missions will remain a distant dream in reality,” the report said.

The committee has recommended the government to get its act together and identify problematic areas leading to slack implementation and address them on a war footing, including the brittle financial health of most of the municipal bodies in undertaking the Centre’s flagship schemes.

