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Indian Economic Policy

Notes 19.5 Urban Infrastructure

Urban infrastructure includes water supply and sanitation which are important basic needs for
improvement of the quality of life and enhancement of the productive efficiency of citizens. Generally,
State Governments and Union Administrations, with financial and technical assistance from the Central
Government, have planned and executed various schemes for providing drinking water and sanitation.
The Government of India launched the National Water Supply and Sanitation Programme in the
First Plan itself with an outlay of ` 49 crores (which was 1.5 per cent of the total Plan outlay) at that
time; and this outlay had increased to ` 16,700 crores in the Eighth Plan (3.8 per cent of the total
outlay).
With steady increase in urban population on account of rapid industrialisation, natural growth of
population and migration from rural areas, the magnitude of the water supply and sanitation problem
in our bulging cities and towns is assuming a critical dimenstion in the background of depleting
ground water resources, environmental pollution, poor water supply and sanitation in slum areas
and non-availability of proximate sources of water supply. In spite of the enormity of the problem,
the Government of India has set bold targets of covering 100 per cent of the drinking water
requirements of the urban population and 75 per cent of their sanitation needs.
Most urban infrastructure services are provided by Municipal Corporations and Municipalities who
fund their requirements largely by loans and grants from Central and State Governments. In order to
supplement the efforts of urban development, the Government of India has depended upon the
following agencies :
(a) Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) which invests in urban infrastructure projects — like
water supply, drainage, housing, power and transport— as a part of its statutory requirements;
(b) The Housing and Development Corporation Ltd. (HUDCO) is given the task of financing urban
infrastructure. HUDCO provides infrastructure loans to State Urban Finance Corporations, Water
Supply and Sewerage Boards, Municipal Corporations, Improvement Trusts, etc; and
(c) The Infrastructure Leasing and Finance Services Ltd which also finances urban infrastructure
projects.
Many states in India are now inviting private sector participation in the provision of infrastructure
services on a more cost - effective basis—e.g., contracting out the management of urban services such
as construction and maintenance of toilets, garbage collection and disposal, solid waste conversion
and maintenance water supply systems, etc, BOT franchises and provision of services through
voluntary organisation community organisations and common interest group.
Urban Transport

Another important problem of our cities, particularly in our metropolitan cities is the extreme
inadequate of public transport facilities, as a result of which number of personalised vehicles has
increased rapidly urban areas in the last few decades. In many cities, vehicle population has reached
alarming proportions relation to the road and network available. With his density of population, and
scarcity of land, there almost no scope for accommodating more vehicles are meet the growing demand
for transport. Besides, contract of energy consumption in order to check dangerous growing urban
pollution point out to the need for increase in public transport and rail-based transport.
Metro Rail
Metro rail projects in Delhi and some of metropolitan cities have started gaining momentum. The
approvals and commissioning of metro routes in NCR Delhi, Mumbai, Banglore, Chennai, Kolkata,
etc. given in Table 8.

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