NEW DELHI: Flagship schemes like Smart City, Housing for All and many other programmes of the NDA government have scored poorly in a report by Pahle India Foundation. The policy think tank has released a report “Appraising Reforms and Unfinished Business” analysing the implementation of government’s schemes in the last four years.
The report was released recently by Niti Aayog VC Rajiv Kumar. Ambitious scheme Smart Cities Mission was announced in the year 2014-15 with a view to develop 100 Smart Cities as satellite towns of larger cities by modernising the existing mid-sized cities. However, the scheme has witnessed poor implementation. Similarly, Housing for All too fared poorly.
The government has announced a total of 363 reforms in budgets since 2014-15. The objective of the report is to determine the performance of the government on reforms announced. The report said that Infrastructure remains a concern with a large proportion of announcements falling under ‘Promised but Not Done’. Air and ports infrastructure have under-performed significantly. It also said that employment as a sector has seen a lot of positive activity and done better than most others. The report also highlighted the achievements in direct taxation saying it has done exceedingly well.
The report also said that a majority of total budget announcements were initiated or executed within a year. As per the report, 26 per cent of total announcements remains to be done.