The Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry, with days to go till the Mission deadline of 30 June, is considering extending the Smart Cities Mission to allow the cities to complete the ongoing projects, which account for around 10 percent of the total projects.

Launched in 2015, the Smart Cities Mission covers 100 cities that were selected through various rounds of competitions held from January 2016 to June 2018. The selected cities had five years from their selection to complete the proposed projects, meaning the original deadlines were from 2021 to 2023.

After the pandemic broke out, the deadline for all 100 cities was fixed to June 2023 in 2021. In May last year, the Ministry again extended the deadline this time to 30 June 2024.

Recently, around 10 percent of the projects worth around Rs.150 billion were pending. An extension for those cities that still need to complete their projects beyond June 30 was being considered.

The Ministry’s Smart Cities Mission dashboard showed that out of a total of 7,996 projects worth Rs.1.64 trillion, 7,118 projects worth Rs.1.43 trillion had been completed as on June 7 while 878 projects worth Rs.211.89 billion were still ongoing as of June 7.

It could take the cities around six months more to complete the ongoing works. Earlier this year, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Housing and Urban Affairs’ report said that the ministry has said before the committee that in case of project noncompletion within the extended time frame, the concerned state governments will have to complete the projects at their own cost