An emergency meeting of the City Corporation council on Thursday approved the draft plan recommendations prepared by the various working groups for the years 2014-15 and 2015-16. The recommendations will now be placed before the ward sabhas and discussed at the development seminar, following which the draft plan will be finalised.
The recommendations are virtually a repetition of the previous draft plans, except a few items.
The Opposition councillors said there were a number of spill-over projects from the previous years. They complained about the lack of progress in many projects announced in the previous years.
One of the major debates was regarding the previous year’s comprehensive housing project for coastal wards, with some councillors alleging that the project was yet to take off in their wards. Congress councillor Nedumam Mohanan said the small window of time provided for ward sabhas, from January 11 to 19, was inadequate for a fruitful discussion on the projects. “In the previous years, the ward sabhas were given months to discuss the recommendations.”
