BS Number Wise: Smart City Mission is slow and slipping

Plan to develop 100 urban centres is unable to meet deadlines or fully use funds but keeps adding new projects to its list

When the government announced the Smart City Mission in 2015, it set a six-year timeline to develop 100 cities with the best infrastructure by 2021. A total of 20 cities were selected that year, but as more places were added in 2016 and 2017 the completion deadline was shifted to 2022. Last year, the deadline was shifted yet again to June 2023.

An analysis of the government’s digital dashboard on the Mission shows that of the 6,782 projects only 51 per cent, or 3,463, are complete in the 100 cities. The June 2023 timeline looks difficult.

Of the Rs 1.89 trillion budgeted for the Mission, cities had spent just a third till February 8. Only 11 smart cities had used more than 75 per cent of funds and 26 others had exhausted 50 per cent.

In the last six months, only 4 per cent of all Smart City projects were completed. Till July 7, state governments had completed 47 per cent of tendered projects. Till February 9, they had finished 51 per cent.

Analysis shows that only three of 89 smart cities had doubled the number of completed projects in the last six months, whereas 11 had increased the number of completed projects 1.5-times.

Moreover, thirty of the 100 cities have completed less than a third of their tendered projects.

Cities, meanwhile, are adding more projects to their lists. Between July 2021 and February 2022, as many as 37 per cent more projects were added. In July 2021, there were tenders for 4,954 projects worth Rs 1.51 trillion. On February 8, 2022, there were 6,782 projects worth Rs 1.89 trillion.

The government will have to pick up its pace for completing projects if it wants to meet the June 2023 deadline.

Costly projects take more time, and the government has been targeting low-value tasks until now. While the average value per tendered project is Rs 27.9 crore, the average value of a completed project stands at Rs 17 crore.

The government needs to remember the adage “Rome wasn’t built in a day”: arbitrary timelines just hurt the cause more.