Kamal Nath asks for concrete roadmap on urban infrastructure from Isher Ahluwalia panel

NEW DELHI: Urban Development minister Kamal Nath has asked the expert group on urban infrastructure and services led by economist Isher Ahluwalia to revisit its report and come up with a concrete roadmap to help the government implement its recommendations.

Though the ministry appreciates the committee's new ideas - such as allowing some 'exclusive' taxes to be collected by urban bodies and encouraging smaller cities to raise finances in a pooled manner - it would like ground-level action plans for translating them into reality.

"The report is a reasonably good piece of work. I have now told the expert group to tell us how to implement it," Nath told ET. The Ahluwalia panel had been appointed by Nath's predecessor Jaipal Reddy, who moved to the Petroleum ministry in January.

In the report submitted to Nath last month, the panel said that the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) has failed in pushing urban reforms and exposed the limited capacity of urban local bodies in implementing infrastructure projects. Nath agrees. "The JNNURM specified reforms for nagar palikas and municipalities. How will they implement these reforms (on their own)?" he asked. "So the scheme is a mess," Nath said.

The Ahluwalia group suggested launching a New Improved JNNURM for the 20-year period from 2012 to 2031, when it expects 600 million Indians to be living in urban areas. The number of metropolitan cities with a population of over 1 million is expected to reach 87 by 2031 from the present 50. Repeated attempts to get in touch with Ahluwalia on the implementation roadmap sought by the urban development ministry yielded no response.

"We need to revamp the scheme focused on building capacity at all levels of the government, the scheme has not been successful both in terms of reforms and capacity building," Ahluwalia had said after submitting the report to the ministry in March.

The new JNNURM proposed by her panel has mooted a strong programme for capacity creation in local governments as well as the state and central government - with an allocation of 5% of total scheme funds. It has also suggested merging the ministry of urban development with the ministry of housing and urban poverty alleviation.