The Government has collected over Rs 3,900 crore as Swachh Bharat Cess (SBC) in the last financial year. A cess of 0.5 per cent was imposed on all taxable services from November 15 last year.
"The total amount collected from SBC during fiscal 2015-16 was Rs 3,901.76 crore,"minister of state for uban development ao Inderjit Singh said in a written reply in Rajya Sabha. He said 80 per cent of the proceeds of the cess goes to drinking water and sanitation ministry, while the remaining 20 per cent to uban development ministry.
The minister also informed that the UD ministy has released Rs 159.42 crore during 2015-16 and Rs 1,569.83 crore during the current financial year to the state and UTs from the SBC. So far, the ministry, has released over Rs 3,580 crore for the Modi-government flagship scheme Swachh Bharat Mission since its launch in October 2014.
"The total central assistance budgeted for Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) is Rs 1,4622.68 crore for the entire mission period. The Ministry of UD has released an amount of Rs 3,580.91 crore (till date)," the minister said.
Launched on October 2, 2014, the main objective of the scheme is to make India clean by October 2, 2019. Replying to a separate query, he said as many as 54 projects amounting to Rs 340.30 crore have been sanctioned for 12 cities, including Varanasi, Amritsar, Mathura, Puri and Kanchipuram under HRIDAY scheme, out of which Rs 103.49 crore has been released.
Officials said that Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh has topped the list of the 500 cities, which are going to be assessed in Swachh Survey 2017, in undertaking cleanliness awareness campaign. The UP city is followed by Vasai-Virar in Maharashtra and Hyderabad. Other cities in the top 10 include Gurugram (Haryana), Chandigarh, Madurai (Tamil Nadu), Vadodara and Rajkot (Gujarat), Tirupati (Andhra Pradesh) and Mysuru (Karnataka).
"During the evaluation of IEC (Information, Education and Communication) activities by the Urban Development Ministry, Aligarh has scored the maximum marks," an UD ministry official said.