New Urban Missions Would Continue To Be The Focus In 2017: Naidu

On 18 December, Union Minister for Urban Development M. Venkaiah Naidu said the progress of implementation of new urban missions was encouraging in 2016 and will continue to be the focus area next year. Naidu said decentralisation of project formulation, their appraisal and approval besides substantial hand holding by both the urban ministries resulted in speedy approvals.

The Urban Development Ministry said in a statement that quick execution of urban infrastructure projects, approval of smart city plans for 60 cities, credit rating of cities for resource mobilisation through municipal bonds, enactment of Real Estate Act and notification of Real Estate Rules, made the year 2016 a new landmark in urban development. According to the Ministry, Swachh Bharat Mission in urban areas got close to half-way mark of mission targets in building toilets during 2016-

As against the target of building over 66 lakh individual household toilets, 27,81,883 have already been built and construction of another 21,43,222 toilets is nearing completion as the mission gained momentum in 2016 while 5.08 lakh community and public toilet seats are required to be built by 2019…

With IANS Inputs