A daunting task awaits the newly elected City Corporation council with the Centre clearing the projects under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) Project.
Kozhikode is one of the nine cities in the State that have qualified under the Amrut Mission, the Centre’s other ambitious infrastructure development scheme. The city lost to Kochi in the last lap for Smart City Project.
The Union Ministry of Urban Development has enlisted six core components such as adequate water supply, assured electricity supply, sanitation including solid waste management, efficient urban mobility and public transport, affordable housing, robust IT connectivity and digitalization, good governance, especially e-governance and citizen participation, sustainable environment, safety and security of citizens, particularly women, children and the elderly, and health and education.
In fact, Mayor V.K.C. Mammed Koya has identified the issues faced by the residents such as safe disposal of garbage, chocked drains, acute drinking water shortage and poor municipal services.
He has prepared a list of priorities to transform the city and implement the goals in a time- bound manner. However, the biggest hurdle the new council would face is the shortage of staff at the Corporation office in many of the departments and the support of the State government in this regard.
Now projects worth Rs. 587.98 crore have been cleared for all the cities. Already the government has appointed A.P. M. Mohammed Hanish as the mission director in the State.
The Centre will share 50 per cent of the project cost while the State has to bear 30 per cent of the cost and the civic body the remaining 20 per cent.
The funds are being released in three instalments in the ratio of 20:40:40 based on achievement of milestones indicated in State Annual Action Plans.
Incidentally, Amrut seeks to lay a foundation to enable cities and towns to eventually grow into smart cities, officials said.
Amrut adopts a project approach to ensure basic infrastructure services relating to water supply, sewerage, septage management, storm water drains, transport and development of green spaces and parks with special provision for meeting the needs of children.
Implementation of this mission will be linked to promotion of urban reforms such as e-governance, constitution of professional municipal cadre, devolving funds and functions to urban local bodies, review of building bye-laws, improvement in assessment and collection of municipal taxes, credit rating of urban local bodies, energy and water audit and citizen-centric urban planning, officials said.
