Centre offers Rs 15k cr incentive to states for better urban planning | India News

NEW DELHI: Amid rampant autonomous and haphazard growth of cities, which are becoming unsustainable, the Centre has announced financial incentives of Rs 15,000 crore for states and UTs for the current financial year to nudge them to ensure proper urban planning by hiring adequate number of planners and take up projects such as transit-oriented development (TOD), town planning schemes and in-situ slum rehabilitation.
The finance ministry has added these provisions in the “Scheme for Special Assistance to States for Capital Investment” for 2023-24. Funds will be available to states as incentive for capital investment on the recommendation of the housing and urban affairs ministry (MoHUA). The absence of planning has resulted in autonomous urban development and making cities unsustainable.
As per the guidelines, the most important areas of reform in the urban planning ecosystem are legal provisions, strengthening the capacity of planning personnel, designation of authority to undertake planning, enlisting processes to be followed and creating awareness among people.
An urban affairs ministry official said the first and foremost aspect of the incentive scheme is sanction and hiring of minimum required number of urban planners for cities. Speaking at the National Urban Planning Conclave, housing secretary Manoj Joshi had flagged how nearly half of the states and most of the cities don’t have urban planners and smaller cities have none. He had added that the Centre wants all states and cities to have urban planners in adequate numbers and this provision has been mandatorily linked to the special capital assistance to states during the current financial year.
The guidelines specify that cities having more than 40 lakh population must have at least five urban planners, three for cities with 10 lakh plus population. Similarly, cities having five lakh to 10 lakh and less than five lakh population must have at least two and one town planners respectively.
States that sanction and recruit urban planners will get financial incentive and for hiring planners on contract, the Centre will provide Rs 1 crore incentive for each such planner.
The MoHUA has put the states and UTs in three categories as per the 2011 urban population.
The ministry informed the state governments on Friday that 20% of the tentative incentive allocation will be released to the eligible states as the first instalment by the Department of Expenditure based on its recommendations. Remaining incentive amount as the second instalment will be released to the states on the basis of actual achievements as on January 15, 2024.