Sir, I have listened to you. We have permitted them. I will make one special request to you because while the hon. Finance Minister was there, we raised a point. The point is very simple, it should be noted. Okay, Sir. But this was our request and we will have to put it in some other manner. Okay. Now, we start on Urban Development. I still call it Urban Development because ‘Affairs’ sounds a little odd. The immediate picture that comes to our mind is that this monsoon has been disastrous where constructions are concerned. Roofs have collapsed in seven airports. That is not their responsibility. There have been leakages everywhere. But, what is their responsibility is unnatural flooding of Delhi and that has happened. Thanks to their intervention, I am not referring to the present Minister, he is a very well-experienced person, I am referring to… the past incidents. In trying to enforce a new plan on Delhi; I would give one example of Pragati Maidan tunnel. I am sure it has hit the water table. Under the city, as you know, there are water channels, water tables and others and we need to go in for hydrographic studies before we enforce our will through, before we put our egotistical schemes through, and the flooding of the Pragati Maidan tunnel would continue. It would continue and you cannot stop it like that. The flooding of Rajpath; — I do not know what name they have given, this was completely unrequired — Rs.670 crores spent on Rajpath for a few bulbs and lights and all you get is perennial flooding because you have tampered with the water system. Now, two days ago, an hon. Member asked this question about what is your role, to which the Urban Affairs Minister’s reply was: “Urban local bodies are responsibility of the State Government.” That way, we cannot wash our hands away from this problem; otherwise, we need to scrap the Ministry. It has a centralizing role, we have accepted it. It is to use its integrative power, its guidelines. They have mentioned that they have PFI guidelines, SOP for urban floods. The CPWD code; there has to be some amount of stringent standards on which buildings are made. Sir, as you know, in one State, known to you, nine bridges have collapsed. This cannot go on with public funds. The second part of their reply goes into saying that urban planning is river-centric. That we are sure about it. I do not know whether you have seen the video by Deshbhakt Akash Banerjee, where he has compared Delhi with Venice. As I said, all of it, much of it is due to the rather ego-pushed plan of the Central Vista. We have to tackle the hydrographic imbalance that we have created in this. When we talk of the Central Vista, I come to two points. With your indulgence, I will mention both the points. One relates to this Parliament building about which, I will not get into any unnecessary criticism because it is all a matter of taste, whether something is nouveau riche, something is classical, these are defined. I would like to raise on behalf of all the Members that the two Members’ gates, Makar Dwar and Shardul Dwar, have no protection. They are exposed to the elements, they are exposed to the rain, whereas, the three gates of the three VIPs, have what you call porticos. This is completely unfair because we are all exposed, even their Members are exposed to the rain, heat and this blazing Sun. We have to do, redesign the building in such a manner that it is covered. There are other things within it, but I will not take time in this debate to mention about these flaws. Then the galleries; I would submit, Sir, it was the plan in the last regime; the galleries are the most useless things we have seen. Those spaces could be fruitfully utilized. As a net result of the disturbance in Delhi,–I am concentrating on Delhi because that is your direct charge, the rest, you can say, the States look after,– we had 207 hotspots in water-logging. This year alone, we have added 101. So it makes 308 hotspots as they call it, for water-logging. Different names have come up for them, they call them Modi talab, Modi fuwarah, all sorts of names; the speaker before me had mentioned. Now coming to the schemes of the Ministry, this year, I believe the allocation is Rs.86,000 crores, which is an improvement over last year. But then, this same Budget was over Rs.1 lakh crores three or four years ago. There is a constant slide down of the money allotted to the scheme. But let us come to some of the more factual issues, some of the more glaring shortfalls, glaring failures. The PMAY, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, takes one-third of the Budget and all the States are forced to put the word ‘PM’ before the name, though the contribution of the Centre is only 60 per cent. We may like to seek permission whether we can put ’60 per cent PM Awas Yojana’; whether you can qualify the words ’60 per cent’ to make it very clear. The implementation has been extremely slow and components like the credit-linked subsidy have taken it into deep, deep complications. The Ministry is aware of it. Most of the houses that are built for the poor are in the peripheral areas of the town from which transport becomes a problem. So before we impose the top-down scheme of the poor people of India, we need to rethink. The in-situ slum scheme has been mentioned by Mr. Maken, though, I think, he had come over and made some remarks, which we consider unnecessary, about some issues, say, the hawker scheme and all. When it comes to Awas Yojana, we are reminded of the Gramin Awas Yojana, where Bengal has been completely deprived. We have sent eleven lakhs thirty-six thousand proposals to the Centre. And, God knows, what is going to happen! Maybe the minister will be able to explain. Eleven lakhs thirtysix thousand proposals for housing lying here in the Centre! And, where the second part of the Ministry’s main expenditure goes into is metro rail, but we will not comment about it because our metro was by slaughtering the city of Kolkata. There are some supplements that have to be done for the Calcutta Metro. The next big failure, I would like to point out is AMRUT. That was supposed to give tap water, gardens to end pollution control. Even now, most of India is still without tap water, whatever be the statements we make from this side or from, हर घर जल, and all that. And, pollution was an integral part of the scheme. But, two days ago, the Health Ministry replied to my question, which the Lancet, the world’s most famous medical body, says that seven percent of the deaths and maybe more per centage happens because of urban pollution. They have completely denied it. The Ministry or the Government has completely denied it and said very ludicrously that it depends on your food habits. I mean, I have it and this would be one of the biggest jokes. Now, there again if you go in, you will find that they have achieved like 15 lakh taps, 37 lakh sewers. But, it covers practically nothing, it is just tokenism. Compared to the size of the problem, 31 per cent of the urban population has no pipe water even now. Sixty-seven per cent has no sewerage arrangement as of now. But, we go in for all sorts of statements. Now, having said this, I will come to the last one, which is a demand of our State Government, aid memoir, if I may put it, on the pending dues that pertained to Mr. Manohar Lalji’s Ministry. Million Plus cities, we have Fifteenth Finance Commission grants of Rs.1,445 crores, just held up. I would ask the hon. Minister to take a look at it. We are being deprived of the rural development side; kindly do not slaughter us on the urban development side now. We have what is called the Shelter for Urban Homeless under the NULM Scheme, which is 60:40. Again, the O&M cost is not being given. I would like to raise this issue to him. The last point I will make is on Smart City. The Smart City scheme is one of the most classic failures of the last 10 years. You can take measurements by whichever method you feel. You are supposed to create hundreds of Smart Cities; there are about 50 going around, and, maybe Madurai is the only one that has done something. And, our new town of Kolkata has done something about it. But as a scheme, as a hype, as a fund allocation, it is one of the most classic cases of maladministration, top-down administration. Right now, the Secretary of the Department made a submission before the Parliamentary Committee, almost admitting that we are winding up the scheme; do not know how much of it is true. The Minister can ascertain it. I can give him the details. But, you need to focus on schemes that are oriented to the people who will actually use them. This top-down method, of de-linking yourself to the people and their direct needs, needs to go away. Urban development or Housing and Urban Affairs is a very important Ministry that can actually go a long way to alleviate the problems of the city in terms of housing, in terms of water supply, in terms of sewerage, in terms of amenities. The way, it has been dealt in the past, Sir, I would beseech upon you to take a fresh look at it because you have a wealth of experience. It has been badly dealt with and badly executed in the past. Thank you.
