SRINAGAR: Jammu and Kashmir has completed 279 of the 288 projects sanctioned under the Smart Cities Mission, leaving nine ongoing schemes worth Rs 239 crore, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs told Lok Sabha on Thursday.
The ministry said that the Union territory’s Smart Cities portfolio totals 288 projects amounting to Rs 6,604 crore. Jammu accounts for 127 projects worth Rs 2,969 crore — of which 123 projects (Rs 2,841 crore) are complete and four projects (Rs 128 crore) remain ongoing. Srinagar has 161 projects valued at Rs 3,634 crore, with 156 projects (Rs 3,524 crore) completed and five projects (Rs 111 crore) still under implementation.
Officials said the high completion rate in Jammu and Kashmir — roughly 96.9 per cent of projects finished — reflects steady progress on area-based and pan-city interventions such as water and sanitation, urban mobility and public space upgrades included in the Smart City Proposals submitted by the Union territory.
At the national level, the statement laid in Parliament said 8,064 projects worth Rs 164,811 crore were taken up under the Smart Cities Mission since its launch in June 2015. Of these, 7,741 projects totalling Rs 155,386 crore have been completed; 323 projects amounting to Rs 9,425 crore were reported as ongoing as on 1 December 2025.
The ministry told MPs that sector-wise completion rates are high: all 100 Integrated Command and Control Centre projects have been completed; smart mobility, smart energy and WASH projects are largely near completion, with only a small number of schemes remaining to be finished. Annexure figures show, for example, 1,651 of 1,734 smart mobility projects are complete and 685 of 695 smart energy projects are complete.
The reply also listed the principal causes of delays cited by States and Union territories: legal and clearance issues, land acquisition problems, construction challenges in hilly terrain, limited availability of vendors and skilled resources in smaller cities, centralisation of decision making in some places and underutilisation of Integrated Command and Control Centres.
To speed up completion, the Ministry issued Advisory No 27 on June 10, 2025, instructing Special Purpose Vehicles to ensure that all ongoing projects be finished no later than December, 2025. The ministry said financial closure of the mission occurred on March 31, 2025 and that follow-up measures include targeted monitoring and support to expedite delayed works.
The Smart Cities Mission, the ministry reiterated, follows an area-based development model — retrofitting, redevelopment, greenfield projects and pan-city initiatives — and aims to create replicable urban solutions across sectors such as mobility, water, sanitation, governance and public spaces.
The ministry said a third-party assessment by NITI Aayog is under way to evaluate socio-economic outcomes and inform any future urban transformation programmes.
