BJP to name JNNURM 2.0 after Atal Bihari Vajpayee

NEW DELHI: After conferring the highest civilian honour, Bharat Ratna to Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Narendra Modi government is all set to name its scheme to rejuvenate 500 cities and towns after the first BJP prime minister.
This new avatar of JNNURM, named after first PM Jawaharlal Nehru will now be known as Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT). It will be a 10-year programme with total investment of about Rs 2 lakh crore.

Though UPA-II had done preparatory work to approve phase-II of JNNURM, it could not clear the scheme. The extended tenure of JNNURM-I ended last year and soon after coming to power the urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu had announced to launch the new scheme.

Sources said the yet to be launched AMRUT will rely primarily on earlier components of the plan such as augmentation of water supply, collection and treatment of sewage and garbage, building roads and flyovers. The new additions being introduced include digitization and wi-fi zones in cities, which are also the main focus of the PM to improve urban governance.

"However, since over 200 projects under JNNURM are still undergoing or have been stalled due to lack of funds, the new scheme will have allocation of about Rs 7,000-8,000 crore to complete these projects," said a government source.

He added there will be major emphasis on monitoring the scheme and tendering projects only after completing preparatory work. "Most of the projects got delayed and there was cost overrun because of bad take off and poor implementation. These issues would be addressed in a systematic manner," the official said.