The Union Housing and urban affairs ministry has extended the Smart Cities Mission till June 2024 for the completion of the pending work

For the second time, the Smart Cities Mission (SCM) has been extended by a year, to June 2024, by the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry in order to finish the outstanding work, according to authorities.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduced SCM in June 2015, for which 100 towns were chosen in two stages. It called for the initial work under it to be finished by June 2021.

Due to the Covid-19 epidemic delaying the project's timely completion, the mission was extended in 2021 until June 30, 2023.

"The cities were selected in two stages, and the development work or project implementation started at least 18 months after the selection process as cities had to first form Special Purpose Vehicles and meet other requirements," remarked an official.

The mission has approved 7,804 projects totaling $1,81,322 crore in 100 locations, the government informed Parliament in February. According to the government, 72% of the $1,07,000 crore in projects are expected to be finished by April 30, 2023.

All 100 cities now have Integrated Command and Control Centres for data-centric solutions and enhancing municipal services as part of the goal. 53 smart cities have taken on about 232 infrastructure development projects totaling 15,006 crore, including multi-modal transportation hubs, multi-level parking, bike sharing, etc.

The mission has been given a budget of 8000 crore for 2023–2024. The budgeted allotment, according to officials, is enough to finish the approved projects.

1104 smart transportation projects totaling 22,785 crore have already been completed as part of the objective, while 526 more are in advanced stages of development. Similar to this, 984 public areas totaling 5861 crore have been built in cities. There are now 343 more similar areas being developed.

According to a third source, the cities were chosen in two stages, and the procedure was finished in June 2018. Creating Special Purpose Vehicles and organising initiatives required time from the cities. The majority of cities are far along in their development processes.