Connect Karo 2021

In News 

• Recently, the Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs and Petroleum and Natural Gas addressed the inaugural session of ‘Connect Karo 2021 – Towards Equitable, Sustainable Indian Cities’.

About Connect Karo 2021

• The Connect Karo 2021 event is being organized by the World Resources Institute (WRI) through video conferencing.
• It brings together Indian, global leaders, policymakers and other stakeholders  committed to designing inclusive, sustainable and climate forward Indian cities. 
• It is held every year and it sees presenters from various fields — air pollution, electric mobility, urban planning, urban water resilience, climate mitigation, and public transit among others sharing their insights and research findings. 
• Theme:  ‘Clean, Green & Just’.
• Focus:  It will be on addressing critical challenges faced by Indian cities with an emphasis on deep dive cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Kochi, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. 

Similar Initiatives for urban development 

• There is an eight-fold increase in the total expenditure on urban development over the past six years (2015-2021), this figure is about Rs. 11.83 lakh crore against the Rs. 1.57 lakh crore from 2004 to 2014. 
  • The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY): It has seen unprecedented success as nearly 1.13 crore houses have been sanctioned and beneficiaries have already moved into more than 50 lakh housing units.
    • An overwhelming majority of the housing has been developed by utilising sustainable and energy-efficient methods, incorporating advanced practices of land-use planning.

• Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT Mission) 
  • It has addressed the requirements of basic social infrastructure.
    • Under AMRUT, 1,831 parks over 3,700 acres have been developed, and 85 lakh street lights have been replaced, resulting in energy savings of 185.33 crore units (kWh).

•  Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): They were achieved by the Government in implementing these Missions and these Missions focused on achieving economic growth, social justice, and environmental sustainability. 
• Long-term policy framework: The government is also creating a long-term policy framework to move towards sustainable means of living.
  • For instance, the Climate Smart Cities Assessment Framework harmonised climate change policy, thus enabling cities to map a way forward to reduce their dependence on non-renewable energy.
• Urban Transport scheme: Under the Urban Transport scheme, public bus transport services will be augmented by deploying public-private partnerships to finance over 20,000 buses. 
  • The government is supporting Public transport and Non-Motorised Transport (NMT) options across the country.
  •  Currently, 721 km of the metro line are operational in 18 cities and a network of 1,058 km of the metro network is under construction in 27 cities, thereby reducing the traffic congestion, and the associated air quality and emissions concerns.
•  Jal Jeevan Mission (Urban): Government will be launching the Jal Jeevan Mission (Urban), with an outlay of Rs. 2.8 lakh crore to ensure universal water supply in all 4,378 urban local bodies in India and enable liquid waste management in 500 cities under the AMRUT scheme.
•  Swachh Bharat Mission 2.0: the Government also be launching the Swachh Bharat Mission 2.0, with an outlay of Rs. 1.41 lakh crores to focus on sludge management, wastewater treatment, source segregation of garbage, and reduction in single-use plastics and control of air pollution by waste management in construction and demolition, and bioremediation dump sites.

Source:PIB