Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT)

Last Updated on February 18, 2017 by Bharat Saini

Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) is mission which seriously and effectively addresses basic services such as water supply, sewerage, urban transport to urban households in urban areas. It champions the cause of building amenities in cities for bettering the urban life; recognizes needs of raising the living standards of urban populace deprived of basic amenities as its foremost national priorities. The scheme launched in June 2015 by the urban development ministry targets the key areas of urban renewal projects which, inter alia, includes establishing infrastructure and ensuring adequate robust sewerage networks and water supply for urban transformation. The scheme underlines the hard fact that infrastructure creation should have a direct impact on the real needs of people, such as providing taps and toilet connections to all households. The scheme simply follows the rule that the focus should be on infrastructure creation that has a direct link to provision of better services to people and should have impact on the real needs of people. That is why the scheme Housing for All by 2022 and Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) were launched simultaneously because both schemes endeavour to subsist and sustain the real needs of people.

 

Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT)  It was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in June 2015 for urban transformation. Initiative to develop Urban Towns and Cities by developing Municipal reforms and providing aid to the State Government and ULBs. Creating economically productive, efficient, equitable and responsive Cities. By upgrading the social economic infrastructure. This Mission of building 100 smart cities intends to promote adoption of smart solutions for efficient use of available assets, resources and infrastructure with the objective of enhancing the quality of urban life and providing a clean and sustainable environment. The focus of the urban renewal projects is to establish infrastructure that could ensure adequate robust sewerage networks and water supply. Under this scheme Union Government provides an assistance of 50 per cent of project cost for cities with a population of up to 10 lakhs each. It provides one-third of project cost for cities with a population of above 10 lakhs each. Rest of the project cost has to be borne by the states and urban local bodies.

 

The thrust areas of the Mission is to ensure supply of water and a sewerage connection for every household; develop greenery and well maintained open spaces (e.g. parks) by increasing the amenity value of cities; contain increasing pollution by switching to public transport or constructing facilities for non-motorized transport (e.g. walking and cycling).; have sewerage facilities and sewage management and build storm water drains to reduce flooding.

 

Five hundred cities have been   taken up for rejuvenation and transformation in terms of thrust areas above-mentioned under AMRUT. All cities and towns with a population of over one lakh with notified municipalities, including cantonment boards (civilian areas), all cities/towns classified as heritage cities under the HRIDAY scheme, thirteen cities and towns on the stream of the main rivers with a population above 75,000 and less than 1 lakh, and ten cities from hill states, islands and tourist destinations (not more than one from each state) will be eligible to be covered under this mission.

 

Since, the mission requires capacity building therefore a set of reforms has been initiated in the Mission. Moreover the Centre alone cannot implement this mission on its own states have been made equal partner in making the mission successful. Earlier, the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) used to give project-by-project sanctions but in case of AMRUT the MoUD will have to approve the State Annual Action Plan once a year and the States have to sanction and approve projects at their end. It is worth mentioning that Rajasthan was the first state in the country to submit State Annual Action Plan under Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT).

 

The remarkable feature of the scheme is Service Level Benchmarks (SLBs) which would work as standards and indicators ensuring the desirable and better outcomes, for instance, in the case of urban transport the benchmark will be to reduce pollution in cities while construction and maintenance of storm water drains is expected to reduce, and ultimately eliminate, flooding in cities thus making cities resilient.