CPM chief Sitaram Yechury on Tuesday wrote to the Centre urging it to allow the next government to take a decision on the country’s new urban policy instead of trying to push it through. 

Yechury’s letter to the MoS housing and urban development, Hardeep Singh Puri, comes days after the ministry released its first draft of the National Urban Policy Framework (NUPF). In his letter to Puri, Yechury said the deadline of March 10 for consultations was “highly exclusive planning” and which would result in a large number of people, including groups working on urban affairs, not being able to participate. 

“This is also a period when the general elections are about to be announced and soon we shall have the Model Code of Conduct in place. In such a background, I suggest you to sincerely not just postpone the date of the deadline, rather allow the new government to take the call on the urban policy framework as the mandate is desired by the people of the country,” he said in the letter. 

Yechury also said that urbanisation policies of the government, including the smart cities plan, have been “failures”. 

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