JNNURM snippets

The UPA government’s flagship programme Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) may have to depend on private funds as the government may find it difficult to spare more resources. The Planning Commission has said it will be difficult to spare additional government funds for the “very successful” scheme that has run out of its initial corpus and there is a need for private money to flow in. “There is a risk that the scheme may lose its momentum for want of adequate funds. There is a need for private money to come into city development,” Planning Commission member Arun Maira said. Launched in December 2005, the scheme has generated a lot of interest from state governments, leading to the utilisation of the Rs 1,00,000 crore earmarked for seven years in the first four years of its implementation. Mr Maira pointed out that the scheme was enthusiastically received by most state governments as it also meant some additional Central funds coming their way. “It proved to be a very successful initiative. It made the country pay attention to the condition of our cities,” he said. With funds running out, the urban development ministry had sought Rs 50,000 crore more for the scheme from the Planning Commission. While a World Bank loan of $1 billion is likely to be sanctioned for the scheme, the need for funds is several times more. The Planning Commission member, who is also a management consultant earlier working with Boston Consulting Group, said there was a lot of scope for private money to come into urban infrastructure. “It (flow of private money) is already happening. The Mumbai metro is an initiative totally funded with private money,” he said. According to infrastructure consultant and chairman of Feedback Ventures, Vinayak Chatterjee, private investors will indeed be interested in investing in JNNURM provided the government creates bankable public-private partnership (PPP) projects and gets private players to bid for them. “This can work out provided users pay charges and there is a regulatory environment to enforce it,” he added. Mr Maira said that with the money from the World Bank coming in, the stress in JNNURM will now shift to soft infrastructure. “The emphasis will now be on soft infrastructure like management of local bodies, water management, transport management, water distribution, housing and land management,” he said. Around 40 projects have been completed so far under the flagship scheme. Some of the projects completed are construction of a six lane flyover on Memnagar junction at Ahmedabad, a sea water desalination plant at Minjur in Chennai and a flyover at Rajiv Gandhi Circle-Volume II in Hyderabad. Under the scheme, more than 460 projects were sanctioned in 63 mission cities with to improve the civic infrastructure and make it sustainable for the identified urban cities. Around 28 new cities may also be added to the list.