NURM to focus on 50 small cities for renewal

Over 50 small cities across the country will form the focal point for the Rs 50,000-crore National Urban Renewal Mission (NURM), announced in this year's Union budget.

Nearly 80 per cent of the NURM allocations will go towards facilitating infrastructure development such as roads, waterlines and sewage in the small cities.

Of the total 60 cities that will benefit from the mission funds, only 7 are mega cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata.

Other cities listed under NURM include 28 cities with over 1-million population and 25 cities of tourist importance. These include cities such as Nagpur, Chandigarh, Coimbatore and Nashik in the 1 million-plus category and cities like Ajmer and Varanasi in the tourist category.

Speaking at the 7th International conference, Constru India 2005, in the city on Thursday, Anwarul Hoda, member (infrastructure), Planning Commission, said the mission aims to "rebuild urban areas to cope with the problems and pressure of urbanisation. The mission aims at renewing cities that are over 50 years old."

He added that apart from renewing infrastructure facilities in the urban areas, the need of the hour also is to extend these system to the semi-urban and rural areas.

He said as part of the NURM norms the states have been asked to repeal the controversial Urban Land Ceiling Act, as the release of surplus into the system is necessary for the development of infrastructure.

He also said the NURM guidelines call for rationalisation of user charges, property law and local bodies reform, as well as a national rent policy. Rationalisation of stamp duty structures, too, is on the anvil, Hoda said.

"If the stamp duty is high, it leads to properties and transactions being under-valued. Consequently, the states also lose revenues," he said.

Hoda said the proposals are expected to be passed by the Cabinet shortly.