Acceding to the requests from various cities that sought more time to complete their ongoing projects, the Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry has extended the deadline for the Smart Cities Mission till June 2024. The existing deadline of the Mission is June 2023. Extension is being granted not only to complete projects but to complete documentation, dissemination, institutionalisation of all best practices, templates, innovations created under the Mission so that they can be taken up for replication across the country. The PM launched its flagship Smart Cities Mission (SCM) on June 25, 2015 and 100 cities were selected for redevelopment through two-stage competition. The current extension of one year from June 2023 to June 2024 is only the first extension beyond the five-year period. According to the ministry, the one-year extension will ensure 100 per cent works under the SCM get completed across 100 smart cities. In view of the tremendous impact of the SCM on ease of living for citizens and ease of doing business for businesses, the ministry has decided to extend the Smart Cities Mission by one year.
Of 100 cities, around 50 have completed close to 75 per cent of their targeted projects and are on track to complete remaining works by June 2023. Over 66 per cent projects in small cities, and over 80 per cent projects in the metros have been completed. This pace amounts to completion of an average of 100 projects worth around Rs 1,850 crore every month; three+ projects worth Rs 60+ crore every day, equivalent to completing around six kms of two-lane highways every day. In most of the cities, the amount of infrastructure spending as part of the Mission is much higher than their regular budgetary spends. As many as 232 public-private partnership projects worth Rs 15,006 crore have been taken up across 53 smart cities - both small and big. These projects are multi-sectoral and include infrastructure building like multi-modal transport hubs, common mobility cards, multi-level car parking and public bike sharing.
