With maximum increase in allocation to the Smart Cities Mission, the Housing and Urban Affairs (HUA) ministry's budgetary provisions have been pegged at over Rs 41,765 crore for the next fiscal, a hike of 2.82 per cent over 2017-18, reports PTI. The HUA ministry was formed after merging the 'urban development' and 'housing and urban poverty alleviation' ministries, which had a total outlay of Rs 40,618 crore in Union Budget 2017-18. Smart Cities Mission, under which the ministry has announced 99 cities for central assistance, got the highest hike of 54.22 per cent with Rs 6,169 crore as against Rs 4,000 crore in 2017-18 Budget. "I am happy to inform that 99 cities have been selected with an outlay of Rs 2.04 lakh crore. These cities have started implementing various projects," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said while presenting the Union Budget 2018-19.