Retired bureaucrat Davidar inspects Smart City projects

CHENNAI: The one-member committee headed by retired IAS officer PWC Davidar on Wednesday inspected various Smart City Mission projects being implemented in Greater Chennai Corporation.

The GCC had taken up 48 projects at Rs 1,096 crore under the Smart City Mission. According to the corporation sources, Davidar inspected various projects and waterbodies for the second consecutive day, along with the corporation officials.

Sources said that this one-man commission’s probe was taken up after Davidar had completed similar inspections in the remaining 10 cities — Coimbatore, Madurai, Thanjavur, Salem, Vellore, Tiruppur, Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli, Tiruchy and Erode.

According to a GO, the one-man committee would investigate whether the selection of works under the Smart Cities Mission was in accordance with the guidelines.

He also had to investigate the extent to which the works selected had impacted the development of smart cities as envisaged in the mission guidelines.

The committee would also inquire into whether the Smart Cities Special Purpose Vehicles were set up and functioned according to the guidelines and whether the government grants under the mission were released and utilised as per the guidelines.

Under the Smart Cities Mission, the Union and the State governments share the project cost equally. Of the 644 projects sanctioned at a cost of Rs 10,651 crore, 257 projects had been completed at a cost of Rs 2,327.86 crore.

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