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Bhubaneswar, Dec 8: The state has not earmarked any funds for smart city projects in the capital this year as Rs349crore out of Rs372crore allocated previously remain unspent.
Housing and Urban Development Minister Niranjan Pujari revealed this in his written reply to a question raised by member Chandra Sekhar Majhi in the Assembly Friday. He said the state and the Centre had allocated Rs372 crore (Rs 186crore each) towards the Smart City project during 2015-16 and 2016-17 of which Rs349crore remains to be utilised.
The minister revealed that of the 15 components of Smart City project in Bhubaneswar that were estimated to cost about Rs1,074 crore, the state government had taken up works only on seven components for which the budget was an estimated Rs68.15 crore.
The seven projects are being carried out by BDA, BMC and other private firms. The state has spent only Rs22.92crore on these projects over the past two-and-a-half years.
The minister, however, did not clarify why the funds had remained unutilized. It has raised concerns whether the smart city projects would be executed on time.
Under the Smart City project, the state government proposes to spend Rs4,537crore, out of which the Centre will provide Rs500 crore. The rest will be provided by the state government and private stakeholders will be allowed to fund projects in the PPP mode over five years.
The state government had formed a Special Purpose Vehicle last year to implement Smart City projects with paid up capital of Rs250 crore and authorised capital of Rs500 crore.
Centre ignoring request for forces: CM
Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Friday alleged that the central government has ignored the state’s request for additional forces to tackle Left Wing Extremism here more effectively. Patnaik made the statement during a discussion on supplementary demand for grants from the home department in the Assembly. Patnaik said: “The LWE cadre has no local base and Orissa’s problem is mostly caused by infiltration from Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh. The asymmetric deployment of central forces on the state’s borders with Chhattisgarh is a major issue to which we have drawn the central government’s attention. However, as usual, our repeated requests for additional deployment of central forces have not been considered so far.” The CM also said the state has remained by and large free of incidents associated with Maoist violence this year. Meanwhile, in another development, the state-level committee on anti-Maoist operations approved an annual budget of `71 crore for 2017-18 under the Security Related Expenditure (SRE) scheme. The Assembly Friday faced a storm over the Mahanadi row and ruling party members stalled proceedings over Polavaram issue. BJP members agitated over farmer suicides leading to adjournment of the house twice in the pre-lunch session.
