Launching of smart cities, AMRUT, housing schemes an event

Congress today termed as "elitist" Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'smart cities' plan and dismissed as an "event management exercise" the launching of smart cities mission, Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) and Housing for All (Urban).
"Either Modi is not understanding or he is being given wrong suggestions. Government is moving in the wrong direction. Creating 100 smart cities won't solve the problem of urban India.
"Creation of new smart cities will not solve the problem. We need to make all our existing cities smart. This concept is elitist and will benefit only few," he told reporters at the AICC briefing.

Maken, who was also Union Minister for Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation in UPA-II government, said the number of census town rose to 7,935 till 2011 since independence, and the experience shows that creation of new cities was not a solution.
"This is just one more event management exercise by the Prime Minister. One new logo is out and the country has been told that the problems of urban India will be removed by Smart Cities.
"A number of schemes made by Congress earlier were merged together and named Atal Yojana. There is nothing new in it. Even its budget was slashed," the Congress leader said.

He said it should be kept in mind that the paucity in the country was about affordable housing like in Lower Income Group or Extremely Weaker Sections (EWS) categories.

"This announcement is not going to benefit the country at all," he claimed.
Launching the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), Smart Cities Mission, and Housing for All (Urban) here, the Prime Minister said, "under these schemes we can go ahead and we can do it together (Centre and state). India is rapidly urbanising. Every year Hindustan gives birth to a small country".
While 500 cities will be developed under AMRUT scheme, there would be 100 smart cities over five years and Housing for All aims construction of 2 crore houses in urban areas in the next seven years.

Smart city will be selected through a competition among cities, while 500 cities are being identified under AMRUT.
Referring to Smart City, Modi said, "For the first time in India, a challenge was being floated, in which the citizens of urban India could contribute in the formulation of development visions of their cities.