Solan fails to secure AMRUT funding

Ambika Sharma

Solan, May 2

Solan has failed to find central grant under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) even as eight other urban local bodies (ULBs) have received Rs 154.07 crore for augmenting water supply works. These towns are Mandi, Theog, Rajgarh, Chamba, Hamirpur, Sunni, Rampur and Dalhousie.

While the areas added to the Mandi municipal corporation have also earned Rs 28.94 crore for water supply scheme, no such funds could be secured for Solan where rural areas lying in its precincts were added to the civic body to upgrade it to a municipal corporation in 2020.

Efforts afoot, Proposal sent

Proposals had been sent for seeking financial assistance under AMRUT for the Solan civic body but no funds were approved. Efforts are afoot to secure funds from the state government to augment water supply in the merged areas and enable sewage connectivity.

Sumit Sood, executive engineer, jal shakti department

While tendering process was underway in the eight civic bodies for executing the water supply projects, Solan was struggling to secure funds to augment its water supply as well as its sewage management scheme.

Executive Engineer, Jal Shakti Vibhag, Mandeep Gupta, confirmed that a sum of Rs 154.07 crore has been approved for eight ULBs under AMRUT. He said out of 61 ULBs in the state, those having dire necessity of augmenting water have been given preference by the concerned committee based on the available funds. Towns requiring more than Rs 50 crore assistance have been excluded to accommodate more ULBs.

Solan does not even figure in the another list of towns comprising Bilaspur, Palampur, Nahan, Dalhousie, Dalhousie cantonment, Bakloh Cantonment and Kangra.

The proposal for securing Rs 4.9 crore for these towns was under the consideration of the AMRUT for water bodies rejuvenation projects. Only Kullu town figures in the proposed sewage management project where a financial assistance of Rs 11.6 crore has been sought for its two projects.

Solan, Mandi and Palampur civic bodies were upgraded to municipal corporations in October 2020.

Sumit Sood, Executive Engineer, Jal Shakti Department, Solan, said proposals had been sent for seeking financial assistance under AMRUT for Solan civic body but no funds were approved. Efforts are afoot to secure funds from the state government to augment water supply in the merged areas and enable sewage connectivity.

A population growth of 57.26 per cent was registered in Solan in 2011 which was the highest in the state. Being the fastest growing ULB, Solan faces an immense load of urbanisation as besides increase in its population, a large chunk of the floating population also visits it on a daily basis.