Kochi: The Union Government has extended the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) for two more years to complete ongoing projects and reforms in various states. This has turned out to be a boon for Kochi because several JNNURM projects had failed due to the Corporation’s inability to conceive them properly.

The Corporation will have start afresh and convince the central urban development ministry to give funds. The government order extending JNNURM to 2015 has given time till March 31, 2014 to states to submit new projects. The civic body had been rebuked for under utilisation of JNNURM phase-1 funds, but apart from bad conception, major reasons were were flaws in technique, design and execution. Another stumbling block were land acquisition issues.

However the corporation completed JNNURM funded works like the Edappally-High Court Road and junction improvement at a cost of Rs 15.53 crores and development of Sahodaran Ayyappan Road and junctions spending Rs 8.39 crores.

The drainage works in various parts of the city also are nearing completion. No other works under the solid waste management, water supply, sewerage, surface water drainage, urban road transport and heritage categories materialised during the last seven years.

According to the 2011 Census, the urban population grew to 377 million showing an average growth rate of 2.76 percent per annum during 2001-2011. Urbanisation as a whole increased from 27.7 percent in 2001 to 31.1 percent in 2011 – an increase of 3.4 percentage points.  JNNURM was therefore launched in December, 2005, to provide assistance to state governments to improve amenities in cities and towns.