Budget: Govt announces 150% hike in outlay of Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban

In a major boost to the Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban), the Centre on Wednesday announced a 150-per cent hike in the outlay of its flagship scheme with an allocation of Rs 5,000 crore in the Union Budget 2023-24.

However, there has been a nine-per cent decrease, with an allocation of Rs 2,132 crore, for the construction of non-residential office buildings, including the Central Vista project, Parliament and Supreme Court, as compared to the revised estimates of Rs 2,344.08 crore in the last fiscal.

On October 1, 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched the second phase of the Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban), which envisions making all cities in the country "garbage-free".

In the 2022-23 revised estimates, the SBM(U) was allocated Rs 2,000 crore.

The Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry, which has been implementing the SBM(U) and the Central Vista redevelopment project, was allocated Rs 76,431.6 crore in the budget.

According to the budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, an amount of Rs 19,518 crore has been earmarked for all the metro projects in the country.

Another ambitious scheme of the government, AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation), was allocated Rs 8,000 crore, as against Rs 6,500 crore allocated to in the revised estimates for the last fiscal.

The Smart Cities Mission was allotted Rs 8,000 crore as against Rs 8,800 crore in the revised estimates for the last fiscal.

Sitharaman announced that an Urban Infrastructure Development Fund (UIDF) will be set up to ramp up infrastructure in the tier-2 and tier-3 cities with an annual allocation of Rs 10,000 crore.

She said the states will be encouraged to leverage resources from the grants of the 15th Finance Commission as well as existing schemes to adopt appropriate user charges while accessing the UIDF.