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Om Prakash Mathur: The Budget and the cities/India plans to spend just 0.6%
of GDP on its cities versus 3-5% in China Om Prakash Mathur / New Delhi
March 11, 2007 /<let me draw the attention of the finance minister to at
least one aspect whose centrality to the country's growth trajectory seems
to have been missed out in the budget-making exercise. This relates to
cities and towns: how sensitive has this Budget been to the financial needs
of cities and towns? Has the Budget made adequate provisions for them to be
able to contribute to, let us say, the XIth Plan goals and objectives?
Cities and towns hold 310 million people or **30 per cent of the country's
total population**. About 75 million of them belong to the category of the
poor (2004-05 estimates). > <All this would add up to an investment of
approximately Rs 21,000-23,000 crore in 2007-08, or a per capita average of
Rs 670-730 for meeting the city-wide needs of water supply, wastewater
disposal systems, community toilets, solid waste management, street
lighting, intracity road network, and parks and playgrounds - the very basic
for any living. Is this level of investment good enough for our cities and
towns? This is just about 0.6 per cent of GDP, a fraction of what the Rakesh
Mohan Committee had estimated to be the minimum needs for Indian cities. ><A
Rs 5,000 crore bag supplemented with funds from the other tiers of
government are hardly adequate to p ull private capital into renewal of
cities. Instead, capital is being directed to creating SEZs/IT cities in
greenfield areas to serve what existing cities and towns could have done by
speedier implementation of the JNNURM reform agenda. > How does Goa's
government and its budget do their bit to address the national problem
highlighted here? If I am not mistaken, 50% of the state's population is
living in semi-urban conditions (the so called "villages"). Is anyone
getting the big picture?
