Development works worth over Rs. 4,000 crore in urban areas of the State, such as drinking water projects and housing, have almost come to a standstill as the Union government has not released funds for them in the last six months, said Minister for Urban Development Vinay Kumar Sorake.
Addressing presspersons on Wednesday, he said the Centre had kept various schemes launched by the previous UPA government, such as the JNNURM and the UIDSSMT in abeyance. “We were informed that these schemes will be renamed and re-launched. But, we have no further information,” he said.
The State government had sought Rs. 6,000 crore under the UIDSSMT and Rs. 7,000 crore under JNNURM. The previous government had released Rs. 3,000 crore and Rs. 1,000 crore respectively for infrastructure projects, he said.
Mr. Sorake said the Town and Country Planning Act will be amended to popularise Transfer of Development Rights (TDR); facilitate change in land use if acquisition of land acquired by the government for infrastructure development is delayed by more than five years; and fix lake development cess, collected from people during plan approval, on the basis of population.
The department is also seeking amendments of certain provisions mooted in the newly launched Industrial Policy, he said.