Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday stressed on development with a holistic approach to plan cities and urban spaces while addressing Mayors of BJP ruled urban bodies in a conference held in Gujarat’s capital Gandhinagar.
He said that urban development cannot be done with just a single approach of winning elections as the representatives must not become election-centric but instead should focus on developing satellite towns, proper urban planning with basic infrastructure like roads, streetlight, and water and sewerage system.
Mr. Modi also emphasised on infrastructure development of tier II and tier III cities that can help in decreasing the burden on big cities with massive population. The two day conference is being held in Gandhinagar which was virtually inaugurated by the Prime Minister in which as many 118 Mayors and Deputy Mayors of BJP-ruled urban local bodies from 18 States and Union Territories are participating.
“The elected representatives should not think just in terms of winning elections. You cannot develop your city with an election-centric approach. Many times, decisions which could prove beneficial for the cities are not taken just out of the fear that such decisions can result in election loss,” he said in his inaugural remarks.
He told the representatives of the urban local bodies to the cities and the States must work jointly in planning and infrastructure development.
Talking about creating urban infrastructure for mass transport, he said the Metro rail network in different cities of India was less than 250 kilometres in 2014 and has now increased to more than 750 km, while work is going on for another 1,000 km.
“Today, we are developing 100 smart cities across the country and so far, we have completed projects worth ₹75,000 crore. Urban housing is a major challenge for cities. Under our PM Awas Yojna [Urban], we have so far allotted 1.25 crore houses to the poor,” the Prime Minister said.
The budget for housing projects has been increased from ₹20,000 crore in 2014 to ₹2,00,000 crore today, he said.
The Prime Minister also asked the Mayors and other representatives to turn their attention to increasing cases of fires and old buildings collapsing in cities and asked that all rules must be followed to ensure that such incidents do not rise in their respective cities.
