Centre releases over Rs 1,000 crore to 13 states for AMRUT

NEW DELHI: The Centre has released more than Rs 1,000 crore to 13 states as first instalment under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), which aims at ensuring water supply and sewer connections to all households in 500 cities.

The Urban Development Ministry released a sum of Rs 1,062.27 crore in this financial year to 13 states, an official statement here today said.

This is part of the total central assistance of Rs 5,311.38 crore committed to 13 states, for which the Ministry has approved Atal Mission Action Plans for 2015-16, entailing total investment of Rs 11,671.76 crore in 286 cities.

These 13 states are Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Chhatisgarh, Odisha, Haryana, Telangana, Jharkhand and Mizoram.

The Urban Development Ministry also said it has so far cleared a total of 939 projects for 286 cities, most of them related to water supply and sewerage network services.

The Atal Mission, launched in June this year, aims at ensuring water supply connections and sewer connections to all urban households in 500 mission cities, besides supplying 135 litres per capita per day water on priority.

Under this mission, construction of storm water drains, promotion of non-motorised urban transport, provision of parks and green spaces also will be supported, the statement said.

Under Atal Mission, central assistance is provided based on an objective criteria giving equal weightage to the total urban population and number of statutory urban bodies in each state.

Total central assistance of Rs 50,000 crore has been provisioned under the mission for five years. Central assistance is up to 50 per cent of project costs for cities with population of less than 10 lakhs each and up to one third for cities with population above 10 lakhs each.