Budget 2021 | Water supply, Swachh Bharat 2.0 missions for urban areas

The Union government would launch a mission to provide universal water supply to areas under all 4,378 urban local bodies and the next phase of the Swachh Bharat Mission focusing on management of sludge, waste water and construction and demolition waste in cities, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced in her Budget speech.

“The World Health Organisation has repeatedly stressed the importance of clean water, sanitation, and clean environment, as a prerequisite to achieving universal health. The Jal Jeevan Mission [Urban], will be launched. It aims at universal water supply in all 4,378 Urban Local Bodies with 2.86 crore household tap connections, as well as liquid waste management in 500 AMRUT cities,” she said.

This mission would be implemented over five years with an expenditure of ₹2.87 lakh crore.

The Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban), which was being implemented by the Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry, would get a second round.

“For further swachhta [cleanliness] of urban India, we intend to focus on complete faecal sludge management and waste water treatment, source segregation of garbage, reduction in single-use plastic, reduction in air pollution by effectively managing waste from construction-and-demolition activities and bio-remediation of all legacy dump sites,” she stated.

The Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) 2.0 would be implemented over five years – 2021 till 2026 – with an outlay of ₹1.41 lakh crore.

Boost to urban transport

In a boost to urban transport, the Minister announced a new scheme for public buses and extension of the Metro networks in Kochi, Chennai, Bengaluru, Nagpur and Nashik.

“We will work towards raising the share of public transport in urban areas through expansion of metro rail network and augmentation of city bus service. A new scheme will be launched at a cost of ₹18,000 crore to support augmentation of public bus transport services. The scheme will facilitate deployment of innovative PPP models to enable private sector players to finance, acquire, operate and maintain over 20,000 buses,” she said.

A total of 702 km of conventional Metro lines were in operation and 1,016 km of Metro and Regional Rapid Transit System lines were under construction in 27 cities.

Two new Metro technologies, MetroLite and MetroNeo, would be used in the tier-2 cities and peripheral parts of the tier-1 cities to provide Metro connectivity at a lower cost compared to conventional Metro systems. The Centre would provide counterpart funding for the Kochi Metro Phase-II at a cost of ₹1,957.05 crore, the Chennai Metro Phase-II at a cost of ₹63,246 crore, the Bengaluru Metro Phase 2A and 2B at a cost of ₹ 14,788 crore, the Nagpur Metro Phase-II at a cost of ₹5,975 crore and the Nashik Metro at a cost of ₹2,092 crore.