MPSC 2021 Prelims Paper-I · Question 40 of 100

Correct — option (4), HRIDAY Programme. HRIDAY stands for the Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana, and it is the only one of the four schemes named here whose stated purpose joins urban planning to heritage conservation, which is exactly what the stem asks for. It was launched on 21 January 2015 by the Ministry of Urban Development, since merged into the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, with an outlay of about Rs 500 crore and a duration of four years. Its aim was to bring together urban planning, economic growth and heritage conservation in an inclusive way, and its work covered heritage-sensitive infrastructure, the preservation of cultural assets, the preparation of heritage inventories, and improvements to sanitation, tourism amenities and the areas around monuments and pilgrimage sites. Thirteen cities took part: Ajmer, Amaravati, Amritsar, Badami, Dwarka, Gaya, Kanchipuram, Mathura, Puri, Varanasi, Velankanni, Vellore and Warangal — a list worth learning, because questions are set on which cities were and were not included, and Varanasi received the largest allocation. The scheme was fully funded by the Centre, ran to November 2018 and was subsequently merged into the PRASHAD scheme for pilgrimage and heritage development. The distinguishing word in the stem is 'heritage conservation'. Each of the other three options is a real and large urban scheme of the same ministry, but each is directed at something else — smart infrastructure, sanitation, or water and sewerage — and none of them is a heritage programme.

• (1)Smart City Programme — The Smart Cities Mission was launched on 25 June 2015 by the Ministry of Urban Development, later part of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, and covers one hundred cities selected through a competition among proposals. Its object is to make cities citizen-friendly and sustainable through retrofitting and renewal, usually concentrated in a model area of each city, with a Special Purpose Vehicle set up to carry out the projects. Heritage may feature in a particular city's smart city proposal, but conservation is not the mission's purpose and no part of its design is built around it. This is the most attractive of the wrong options because it is the best known of the urban missions, and a candidate who cannot recall HRIDAY will reach for the scheme they have heard of most often.
• (2)Swachh Bharat Mission — The Swachh Bharat Mission is a sanitation programme, not an urban planning or heritage one. Launched on 2 October 2014, it runs in two parts — an urban component under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and a rural component under a separate ministry — and its targets are the elimination of open defecation, the construction of household and community toilets and the management of solid waste. It does touch heritage cities incidentally, since cleanliness around monuments and pilgrimage sites is part of urban sanitation, and that incidental overlap is what makes it usable as a distractor here. But a scheme is identified by its object, and the object of the Swachh Bharat Mission is sanitation.
• (3)Atal Mission — Atal Mission is short for the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation, known as AMRUT, launched on 25 June 2015 — the same day as the Smart Cities Mission — by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and covering about five hundred cities. Its purpose is basic urban infrastructure: a tap water and sewerage connection for every household, the development of green spaces and parks, and the reduction of pollution through public and non-motorised transport. It is the water-and-sewerage mission of the group, and nothing in its design concerns heritage. The option is worth attention because 'Atal Mission' is printed here without its expansion, and a candidate who does not connect the short name to AMRUT may not know what they are being offered.

The urban missions launched in the mid-2010s divide the work of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs into distinct programmes, and questions turn on telling them apart by their objects. HRIDAY, the Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana, was launched on 21 January 2015 with about Rs 500 crore and a four-year life, entirely funded by the Centre, to combine urban planning with heritage conservation in thirteen cities — Ajmer, Amaravati, Amritsar, Badami, Dwarka, Gaya, Kanchipuram, Mathura, Puri, Varanasi, Velankanni, Vellore and Warangal — and it was merged after 2019 into the PRASHAD scheme for pilgrimage and heritage development. The Smart Cities Mission, of 25 June 2015, covers a hundred competitively selected cities and works through Special Purpose Vehicles on retrofitting, redevelopment and area-based renewal. AMRUT, launched the same day, covers about five hundred cities and funds water supply, sewerage, green spaces and transport that reduces pollution. The Swachh Bharat Mission, of 2 October 2014, is the sanitation programme, split into urban and rural components. Alongside these run the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana for housing, the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana for urban livelihoods and, in the culture ministry, PRASHAD for pilgrimage sites.

Government schemes are among the most heavily examined topics in MPSC papers, and the Commission's method is to name the object in the stem and offer four real schemes, only one of which is directed at that object. That construction rewards a very specific kind of preparation: for every scheme, one line saying what it is for, one saying which ministry runs it, and one giving the year of launch. It does not reward memorising outlays and beneficiary numbers, which change and are rarely asked. This question is a clean example, since all four options are genuine central urban schemes of the same period and the same ministry, and the only thing separating them is purpose. Note also how the stem is printed — 'Government of India's ministry of Housing and urban affairs', with that exact capitalisation — and that it uses the ministry's present name even for a scheme launched when it was still the Ministry of Urban Development, the two having been merged in 2017. That is a detail worth knowing rather than a difficulty, since the scheme is the same either way.

• HRIDAY, the Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana, was launched on 21 January 2015 by the Ministry of Urban Development with an outlay of about Rs 500 crore and a four-year duration, fully funded by the Centre.
• Its aim was to bring together urban planning, economic growth and heritage conservation, covering heritage-sensitive infrastructure, heritage inventories, sanitation and tourism amenities around monuments and pilgrimage sites.
• Thirteen cities were covered: Ajmer, Amaravati, Amritsar, Badami, Dwarka, Gaya, Kanchipuram, Mathura, Puri, Varanasi, Velankanni, Vellore and Warangal; the scheme ran to November 2018 and was merged into the PRASHAD scheme.
• The Smart Cities Mission was launched on 25 June 2015 for one hundred competitively selected cities, each working through a Special Purpose Vehicle on retrofitting and area-based renewal.
• AMRUT, the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation, was launched on the same day for about five hundred cities and funds household water and sewerage connections, green spaces and pollution-reducing transport; the Swachh Bharat Mission of 2 October 2014 is the sanitation programme.

• Choosing the best-known scheme rather than the one that matches the object; all four options here are genuine central urban schemes and only one is about heritage
• Failing to expand a short name — 'Atal Mission' is AMRUT, the water and sewerage mission, and the option is printed without its expansion
• Attaching a scheme to the wrong ministry or the wrong year; HRIDAY was launched in January 2015 under the Ministry of Urban Development, before its 2017 merger into the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs
• Assuming that a scheme still runs; HRIDAY completed its four-year term in November 2018 and was merged into the PRASHAD scheme, which a current-affairs question may test

Central schemes reach MPSC papers in three shapes: the object question, as here, where the purpose is named and four schemes are offered; the attribution question, which asks which ministry runs a named scheme or in which year it was launched; and the coverage question, which asks how many cities or districts are included or whether a particular place is among them. HRIDAY is asked about most often through its city list, so the thirteen names deserve to be memorised. Preparation is a running table of schemes with object, ministry, launch year, coverage and current status, updated as schemes are merged or renamed, since the Commission does ask about a scheme that has been folded into another. Add the Maharashtra state schemes alongside, since they are examined in the same way.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The HRIDAY scheme, launched in January 2015, was concerned primarily with which of the following?

  • (a)providing tap water and sewerage connections to urban households
  • (b)eliminating open defecation in urban areas
  • (c)combining urban planning with heritage conservation in selected cities
  • (d)developing one hundred cities through Special Purpose Vehicles

  Answer(c) combining urban planning with heritage conservation in selected cities — the Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana was launched on 21 January 2015 with about Rs 500 crore for four years and covered thirteen cities including Varanasi, Mathura, Ajmer, Amritsar, Puri and Warangal. Water and sewerage belong to AMRUT, urban sanitation to the Swachh Bharat Mission, and the hundred cities with Special Purpose Vehicles to the Smart Cities Mission.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which of the following cities was NOT among those covered by the HRIDAY scheme?

  • (a)Badami
  • (b)Velankanni
  • (c)Prayagraj
  • (d)Kanchipuram

  Answer(c) Prayagraj — the thirteen HRIDAY cities were Ajmer, Amaravati, Amritsar, Badami, Dwarka, Gaya, Kanchipuram, Mathura, Puri, Varanasi, Velankanni, Vellore and Warangal. From Uttar Pradesh only Varanasi and Mathura were included, and Varanasi received the largest allocation of the thirteen. The scheme ran to November 2018 and was later merged into the PRASHAD scheme for pilgrimage and heritage development.