Bhubaneswar: Hopes for the city getting additional grant under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (Amrut) scheme appear bright with the central team appearing to be happy after assessing the measures for implementation of urban reforms.

Two members from the Engineering Staff College of India, Hyderabad had visited the city late last month to review the performance of Bhubaneswar in implementation of the urban reforms under the scheme that includes introduction of online services for citizens and rolling out of municipal cadre among others.

The experts were assisted by Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation officials, along with other line agencies, including the public health engineering organisation (Pheo). An expert who did not want to be named told The Telegraph that Bhubaneswar was doing quite well in implementing the reform measures.

"The Centre has fixed 40 milestones to be achieved under 11 reform measures in Amrut for the first two year of the scheme. So far, the city has done well with introduction of online birth and death registration as well as online grievance redress mechanism among others. Bhuaneswar fairs in implementing the measures with ease," he said.

Under the reform measures, there are components such as introduction of online building plan approval system, online grievance redress system, development of municipal website, collection of taxes in online mode, online collection of user charges, review of building bylaws, energy and water audit among others. Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena said before the advent of Amrut in 2015-16, they had been providing the online services to the citizens. "We have abolished the offline building plan approval process and made it entirely online. We have been improving in every manner. We hope of getting the grants for our good performance," said Jena.

However amid the good performance of Bhubaneswar, the experts were seem disappointed while assessing the other four cities selected for the review of the reforms. Other cities assessed were Berhampur, Puri, Balasore and Bhadrak. Sources said the implementation of the reform measures in these four cities were much behind Bhubaneswar. "The focus remained on Bhubaneswar, while other cities are lagging behind in the scheme. The four cities are doing well in executing the projects planned under the scheme, but when it comes to the reform measures, they are not good enough. We have told the government about it and asked them to make efforts for improvement," said the expert.

Odisha had been awarded by the Centre during 2015-16 for doing well in implementation of the reform measures under Amrut. It had then got Rs 10.27 crore additional grant. "The state is known for implementation of the e-governance services. We'll continue with the good work," said a housing and urban development department official.