Housing & Urban Development
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Urban schemes launched almost as a package on 25 June 2015 — Smart Cities Mission, AMRUT, and PMAY-Urban were announced together, reflecting a deliberate strategy of hitting housing, basic infrastructure, and "smart" city-level tech upgrades simultaneously. Swachh Bharat Mission, though announced separately (October 2014), is usually studied alongside this cluster because it shares the same urban-local-body delivery machinery for its urban component. All fall under the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs, except Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin, which sits with Jal Shakti.
| Scheme | Year | Ministry | One-liner objective |
|---|---|---|---|
| Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban + Gramin) | 2014 | Housing & Urban Affairs (Urban) / Jal Shakli (Gramin) | Eliminate open defecation and achieve universal sanitation ("Clean India") |
| Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Urban (PMAY-U) | 2015 | Housing & Urban Affairs | "Housing for All" (urban) — affordable pucca housing for urban poor/EWS/LIG households |
| Smart Cities Mission | 2015 | Housing & Urban Affairs | Develop 100 cities with core infrastructure, clean environment, and smart/tech-enabled governance |
| AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation) | 2015 | Housing & Urban Affairs | Provide basic urban infrastructure — water supply, sewerage, green spaces — in 500 towns/cities |
| HRIDAY (Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana) | 2015 | Housing & Urban Affairs | Preserve and revitalise the character of India's heritage cities |
| PM Street Vendor's AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) | 2020 | Housing & Urban Affairs | Collateral-free working-capital micro-loans to street vendors hit by COVID-19 |
| Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Urban Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NULM) | 2013 | Housing & Urban Affairs | Reduce urban poverty via skill training, self-employment, and street-vendor support |
| Amrit Bharat Station Scheme | 2023 | Railways | Redevelop and modernise railway stations with modern passenger amenities |
Swachh Bharat Mission, launched on 2 October 2014 (Gandhi's birth anniversary, a deliberate symbolic choice), is India's largest sanitation programme, with its headline achievement being the declaration of India as "open-defecation-free" (ODF) in 2019 — a claim frequently tested alongside the qualifier that ODF status is self-declared and independently verified through survey rounds, not a literal zero-open-defecation guarantee. Phase 2 (from 2020) shifted emphasis from toilet construction to solid/liquid waste management and ODF-Plus sustainability.
PMAY-Urban and PMAY-Gramin are frequently confused as a single scheme — they are administratively distinct (different ministries: Housing & Urban Affairs vs Rural Development) even though both share the "Housing for All" branding and both were substantially scaled up around 2015–16. Smart Cities Mission works through a unique implementation vehicle — each selected city sets up a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), a company under the Companies Act, to plan and execute projects, a structural detail examiners like to test because it's unusual among centrally sponsored schemes.
Memory hook — "One day, three launches": 25 June 2015 — Smart Cities, AMRUT, and PMAY-Urban were all announced together; picture a ribbon being cut three times in one ceremony.
Practice Recall: Before reading on, name the three urban schemes launched together on 25 June 2015.
Answer: Smart Cities Mission, AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation), and Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Urban.