Several budget promises remain on paper

Civic body succeeds in project implementation in some areas

March 05, 2015 12:00 am | Updated 05:37 am IST - KOCHI:

Many announcements made by Deputy Mayor B. Bhadra last year in her budget speech remain non-starters though the civic administration has made some gains in terms of project implementation in select sectors. The Congress-led local body will present its next budget during the fourth week of the month.

The local body succeeded in re-laying a large number of city thoroughfares with bitumen macadam cement concrete and laying inter-locking tiles for longer life. White topping of roads, as promised, would begin soon, said Ms. Bhadra.

The e-governance project has been soft-launched. The preparation of a detailed project report, including the abattoir and storm water management for West Kochi, is currently under way. A few projects proposed by the local body have been included in the Urban 2020 project of the State government. The renovated Town Hall will be thrown open shortly. The preparatory works of women’s hotel was also under way, she said. Kochi Mayor Tony Chammany preferred to highlight the inking of the agreement for Roll-on, Roll-off project as one of the major achievements of the local body. The septage treatment plant at Brahmapuram has also been completed. The local body fulfilled its promise of upgrading a large number of city roads under the guarantee scheme, he said.

Opposition councillor M. Anilkumar said the civic administration failed in major areas of public governance, including public health care and infrastructure development. “Most of the projects announced with much hype ended up nowhere. The local body seems to have lost direction regarding major projects such as the management of the solid waste treatment plant at Brahmapuram and the master plan for the city,” he alleged. All these years, the civic administration could not take a decision regarding the existing treatment pant. Barring a few meetings convened for updating the master plan, the preparation and modification of the document reached nowhere and same was the case with Thammanam-Pullepady and Mamangalam-Pottakuzhy road projects, he said. Though the Mayor had repeatedly spoken about resuming the construction of the office complex, the civic administration could not succeed on it. The Atlantis rail overbridge project also met with the same fate, he said.

Central assistance for many projects, including the financial assistance from the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, had lapsed. The Kerala Sustainable Urban Development Project was yet gain momentum. Though the civic administration had announced the formation of a budget monitoring committee and formed special squads for improving revenue collection, the authorities could not take it further. No reports could be placed before the corporation council on these initiatives, he said.

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