Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT)

Introduction

Setting our own standards of living is very crucial specially when you thrive in this competitive world where showcasing your life with the world is an important factor. Most of the cities and towns of India are underdeveloped as per the utmost knowledge of architecture’s concern and not only the buildings but the sewage and roads accommodating lots and lots of chaos are a well-deserved example of the aged development of the cities and towns. So, to increase the standards of living government of India started a mission known as the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT).

The Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) is a mission started by government of India and governed by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs to ensure proper water supply and sewage connection in every household along with reduction of pollution by switching to public transport and development of green & well-maintained open spaces & parks. The AMRUT mission aims in covering around 500 cities that are having a population of over 1 lakh with notified municipalities. The cities were selected by specific criteria’s like having population of over 1 lakh and so on. Rajasthan was the first state in the country to submit their State Annual Action Plan under the ARMUT Mission. Each and every state need to submit their State Annual Action Plan (SAAP’s) for further proceedings of the mission. It is a PPP project (Public Private Partnership Project) where contribution from both public and private would ensure the success of the mission. The ARMUT project becomes very essential for UPSC mains point of view for clearing the IAS exams. One need to have a basic concept regarding the ARMUT project along with its aims and objectives so as to ensure that he could talk about the same when asked in exams like UPSC mains for clearing IAS. The AMRUT mission is such a huge mission that it always takes many of the other programs under the one, on a side-by-side basis like The Smart Cities Mission, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, etc. The universal coverage of water supply is the priority objective of the mission. As per records around 64% of the households have water coverage before this mission but the mission aims for a clean sweep with 100% water cover. The sewerage and septage management is also crucial in the mission with numbers suggesting a critical situation with only 31% of sewerage coverage before the mission. The mission also aims for a pollution free environment with maximizing the use of public transport or non-motor vehicles and promoting the objective of having green fields and parks. The mission under Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs seems to be distributed into various secretaries of center and state who are responsible of taking the mission to right path and finishing it as per the deadline announced.

The infrastructural development of cities and towns which have some significant importance in the countries economic development is necessary. Most of the major cities located around the coast of India are prone for flood like situation and to regulate that natural calamity infrastructural development is important. Humans extraction is day by day depleting the nature and its resources so to thrive in the scarce of that is necessary for a sustainable growth of the country.

Synopsis of the Mission

The Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) is a mission started by government of India in 2015 for ensuring proper water supply and sewage connection in every household along with the reduction of pollution by encouraging public transport and development of green fields and parks. The mission also aims to provide a proper storm water drainage system which could efficiently carry out the flooded water from the city reducing the chances of flood in the majority of the costal low line cities. The mission is governed by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and efficiently taken forward with the declaration of different State Annual Action Plans (SAAP’s). The mission ensures infrastructural development in 500 cities or towns of India which have population over one lakh.

Eligible Criteria’s of selected Cities

The 500 cities chosen from all over the country are selected with some basic criteria’s like: -

• The cities and towns with a population of over one lakh and also have their notified municipalities as per census 2011 are eligible.
• The capital cities or towns of states and Union Territories are not eligible.
• All cities or towns declared as a heritage sites by MoHUA are eligible.
• 13 cities located at the bank of rivers all over the country are eligible.
• 10 cities from the hill states, island and tourist destination are also eligible.

Process of Implementation

• At first 10% of the budget allocation would be provided to the states and Union Territories as an incentive.
• States and Union Territories would submit their respective State Annual Action Plans (SAAP’s) to the center for fund allocation.
• 50% of the projects cost would be provided by the center for cities with population of less than 10 lakh and one third cost would be provided if the population of city is more than 10 lakhs.
• After receiving funds from center, the funds would be allocated to urban local bodies by the states within 7 days.

Challenges

• Fund Utilization is one of the most important factors of accomplishment of the project successfully but when it becomes a challenge then the project remains in the middle.
• Shortage of land and manpower is affecting the whole project wisely.
• Resistance from the local residents delays the project completion.
• Delay in securing technical sanctions for projects implementation.
• COVID-19 and lockdown created a great impact on these projects.

Conclusion

The AMRUT is a visionary project of Government of India with a vast covering of 500 cities across the whole country. The implementation of this project is challenging with lots of delays due to improper distribution of work force. The ARMUT project is one of the three projects which involve infrastructural development of urban areas. The project is also facing delays due to pandemic and natural calamities in several areas of the country. But the vision of Prime Minister is moving to its ending phase with achieving almost 57% completion of the tenders approved. There are challenges but coming up by after fixing those is what humans are known for and hopefully this dream project would soon be hand over to the common people.