Venkaiah asks municipal bodies to ‘perform or perish’

Vijayawada, Aug 16 (INN): Union Minister of Urban Development M Venkaiah Naidu on Saturday delivered a blunt message to urban local bodies urging them ‘either to perform or perish’ in the new scheme of things.

Naidu did some plain speaking during the review performance of Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) in Andhra Pradesh in respect of Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM). Naidu on noticing that the Vijayawada urban body could spend only about 44% of its committed share for implementing various JNNURM projects resulting in under performance, said ‘this kind of urban governance will not enable the country convert the challenges of urbanization into an opportunity’. He further said that the central government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has identified urban development as a priority sector and state/UT governments and urban local bodies have to ‘opt for a paradigm shift in urban governance’.

Venkaiah Naidu voiced serious concern over VMC being able to complete only six of the 20 projects sanctioned to it under JNNURM that was implemented during 2005-2014. These projects were sanctioned at a total cost of Rs 1,624 crore and was later revised to Rs 1,338 crore in view of the Corporation’s inability to mobilize its share of resources, even as centre released its share. Out of the corporation’s share of Rs 386 crore in the revised cost estimates, VMC could so far spend only Rs 172 crore i.e just about 44 per cent of committed share over nine years, resulting in poor performance under JNNURM.

On noticing that the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation did not raise taxes for over ten years, Naidu urged the Mayor, MPs, MLAs and officials who attended the review meeting to undertake necessary measures to enhance revenue base of the corporation without which the growing needs of urbanization cannot be met. He said that people would be willing to pay for services if quality services are assured to them. He stressed that ‘no taxes means no development work as seems to be the case with VMC’.

Venkaiah Naidu also emphasized the need to ensure transparency and people’s participation in urban development and governance by making public regularly the resources collected, details of works to be taken up and additional resources required, additional facilities to be provided to the people etc.,

The Urban Development Minister told the elected representatives and officials that success of new urban development initiatives will succeed if only the state/UT governments and urban local bodies get pro-active in respect of urban governance reforms and empowering of urban local bodies and capacity building for effective planning and execution of urban development initiatives.

Municipal Development Minister of Andhra Pradesh P Narayana also attended the review meeting at Vijayawada where in the performance of Guntur Municipal Corporation was also reviewed.

Venkaiah Naidu has been visiting various states for discussions on issues of urban governance, implementation of urban development programmes and empowering urban local bodies with transfer of ‘funds, functions and functionaries’.