Modi government’s smart city project facing odds in Himachal Pradesh

DHARAMSHALA: The much hyped smart city project of Modi government is facing odds in this hill state. In less than three years of tenure of this project, the Himachal Pradesh government has transferred seven managing directors (MDs) cum chief executing officers (CEOs) in smart city project being undertaken in Dharamshala town of Himachal Pradesh.
Moreover, the shortage of staff has also led to a failure of civic authorities to provide many basic facilities to the residents of this hill town.
The smart city project was sanctioned in 2016 for this town. Since then, each official posted here as MD cum CEO got only five to six months due to repeated transfers.
The sitting minister was reluctant to speak on this issue.
During congress regime, Rakesh Sharma was appointed as the first. After him, Vikas Labroo, JM Pathania, Lalit Jain, Satish Choudhary, Sandeep Kadam and Rakhil Kahlon have served this post.
Earlier government had taken charge from Sandeep Kadam and appointed Rakhil Kahlon, but again in a recent move the additional charge has been given to Sandeep Kadam.
Municipal corporation is executing this project in this region. It was in 2015 when council here was upgraded to corporation. Earlier, Himachal had only one corporation at hill capital Shimla. There are 17 wards in this corporation. It is bigger than Shimla in area but smaller in terms of population.
“There were 26 posts sanctioned for corporation after it got smart city project but most of them are lying vacant as of now,” said a source.
Due to shortage of staff hundreds of investors are awaiting NOCs or approvals of their building maps from last more than one year. They are running into losses but government has failed to assist them.
In addition to that, many villages that were merged to form municipal corporation in Dharamshala have lost facilities like MNREGA. They were promised that this scheme will be replaced with LAKSHAY, but budget is awaited to regulate this scheme for these villagers now living in urban area.
Repeated attempts to contact concerned officials to get reactions proved futile as none of them was willing to speak over this issue.