CHENNAI: Nearly a decade after the launch of the Smart Cities Mission, 52 of the 243 projects planned across Tamil Nadu’s 11 smart cities, involving Rs 1,602 crore, remain unimplemented, while 44 projects worth more than Rs 623 crore were taken up outside the original plans, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has found.
Among the projects that failed to take off were Chennai’s Rs 248-crore street-light monitoring system and a Rs 120-crore drainage project in Coimbatore.
The CAG further found that 70 projects involving expenditure of Rs 655.43 crore were executed outside the areas identified for focused development under the mission.
While Smart City companies maintained that 26 projects were implemented entirely outside these areas, the audit found the actual number to be 34.
The CAG recommended appointing full-time CEOs, strengthening the finances of SPVs, formalising revenue-sharing arrangements with municipal corporations, and improving transparency in tendering.