Ranchi, March 25: The state urban development department’s approach has led to the postponement of a deal with the Centre under which three cities of Jharkhand were expected to get funds to the tune of Rs 10,000 crore under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).

With this the state government has failed to sign the memorandum for two successive years. It has failed to bring about certain mandatory reforms like abolition of the Urban Land Ceiling Act and civic body polls in compliance with the 74th Amendment of Indian Constitution.

The state government was supposed to sign the agreement tomorrow “armed with a future reform agenda” but at the eleventh hour it realised that they have not yet discussed the reforms with the cabinet. This means that the state, which is already two years late, would not get any funds for infrastructure development in the near future.

State urban development secretary R.K. Shrivastava, while speaking from Delhi, said a cabinet decision is yet to be taken on how the state government will comply to reforms mandatory to get grants under JNNURM.

The Centre launched the ambitious JNNURM in 2005-06 and 63 cities including Ranchi, Jamshedpur and Dhanbad are to be covered under the programme. The project is to be implemented over next seven years.

While many states across the country are already through with the instalments, Jharkhand is yet to get a penny. Interestingly, all the three cities of Jharkhand have completed the preparation of the city development plan (CDP) which involved about Rs 1 crore. Process of drafting detailed project reports (DPR) needs several crores is on.

Top placed sources at the state urban development department told The Telegraph that the March 26 date of signing the memorandum has been postponed for this financial year, too.

A deputy commissioner of a district, whose city is covered under JNNURM lamented over the state government’s approach. “This government is only feeding the consultants but where are the basic things like elected civic bodies and abolition of urban land ceiling. Keeping false promises with the Centre would make things more difficult,” said the deputy commissioner.