The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, on Tuesday admitted that poor governance was proving to be an obstacle in attracting huge investment needed to build and maintain city infrastructure. He called for building or reforming municipal cadres in all the States on urgent basis.

Speaking on the occasion of National Conference of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), Dr Singh said that, “Rapid growth will bring a faster rate of urbanisation. That is almost a corollary. Our urban population is projected to increase from 377 million today to over 600 million by 2031.”

Many cities will experience expansion at the periphery, with smaller municipalities and large villages surrounding the core cities becoming part of the metropolitan area, he added.

Lauding six years of the JNNURM, the Prime Minister said there was urgent need to focus on metropolitan planning, improving connectivity through better and larger networks of roads, expressways and highways. The programme has also increased emphasis on public transport in relation to affordable housing for the economically weaker sections of the society.

Affordable housing

Earlier, the Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation Minister, Ms Kumari Selja, said that the issue of land needed to be resolved for affordable housing. She said the Government was proposing a credit risk guarantee fund with a corpus of Rs 1,000 crore, to encourage banks to lend to economically weaker sections and low-income groups.

The Minister hoped that the proposed Real Estate (Regulation & Development) Bill, 2011, would be enacted soon. The Bill is proposed to protect the interest of the house buyers along with planned development of the real estate sector.

> Shishir.s@thehindu.co.in

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