Making every Budget rupee count for cities: Fresh ideas needed for impact

The share for urban housing has declined, with new schemes being slow to take off and the focus remaining on completing houses under earlier schemes

As the dust settles on this year’s Budget allocation discussions, let’s look at a few measures that need attention from the three tiers of government and other involved agencies to get the most bang for the buck from allocations meant for India’s cities. 

Allocation for the urban affairs ministry has remained around 2 per cent of the Budget outlay, as it has been over the past few years.  But its distribution across urban sub-sectors and initiatives has changed. The share for urban housing has declined, with new schemes being slow to take off and the focus remaining on completing houses