AMRUT - Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation for Dholera Metro City

Blog 32- AMRUT - Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation

AMRUT - Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation for Dholera Smart City

AMRUT stands for Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation. The purpose of this scheme is threefold:-

To ensure that every household is facilitated with constant water supply and also a sewerage connection

To maintain open spaces such as parks and foster greenery in the neighborhood to increase the amenity value of the cities.

To reduce the pollution in the air by considering non-motorized transport such as walking and cycling and also by making an attempt to reduce usage of motorized transport.

The Prime Minister during the launch of the AMRUT Scheme said that ?there is a lack of holistic vision about urban planning, and expansion is driven not by the administrators of a city, but by property developers. Through AMRUT, the aim of the Government is to give cities themselves the chance to plan their future growth.? He also said that ?As the world looks to India, we have to work towards reaching the world standard. We can't feel disheartened that the world has progressed and we missed the bus."

As per him, it is for the first time in the history of India that the common masses as well as the urban leadership has been given a chance to co-decide the future of the cities by sharing their ideas and thoughts on the developmental schemes. These ideas shall be considered by the Government and applied in case feasible. The AMRUT mission has been allocated Rs. 50,000 crore and shall be responsible for developmental work across 500 cities. Majority of the funding requirement shall be raised through Public private Partnership model.The cities selected shall primarily have a population above one lakh residents. State wise quota has been decided towards nomination of the cities and 476 cities have been finalized so far.

Uttar Pradesh has got the maximum number of allocation under AMRUT schemes with 64 cities being nominated from the state. This is followed in numbers by Maharashtra, MP, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

Besides Uttar Pradesh, 37 AMRUT schemes have been identified in Maharashtra, 31 in Gujarat and 31 cities in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh each. Rajasthan gets 30 AMRUT cities while West Bengal gets 28 cities.27 cities fall under Bihar, 19 each in Haryana and Orissa, 17 in Punjab, 15 in Telangana and 10 in Chhattisgarh. Delhi gets one city in its share of nomination.

Besides AMRUT, the scheme of developing 100 smart cities including Dholera Smart City and creating Housing for all by 2022 has also been launched by the Prime Minister. The first smart city of Dholera is already under development while the master plan for housing for all is still being chalked out.

India is going to see a major transformation over the next few decades; for better of course!