The Central fund worth Rs.5 crore for pollution abatement of river Pampa is likely to lapse with the State failing to utilise it in the current financial year.
The Union government had sanctioned Rs.5 crore in March for river Pampa under the National River Conservation Programme (NRCP). The Centre’s proposal was to execute the pollution abatement schemes.
The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests and Climate Change was supposed to monitor the project implementation.
The Centre also proposed electronic fund transfer to ensure maximum possible transparency in the project execution.
But, the State government is yet to identify the projects to be implemented and utilisation of the Central fund is quite unlikely before March 31.
Kerala has been losing many Centrally-sponsored river and lake conservation schemes reportedly owing to the inordinate delay on the part of the State government in making proper follow-up on them.
The river Pampa was included in the National River Conservation Programme in 2003, and the State government had submitted a Rs.320-crore Pampa Action Plan to the Union government way back in December, 2002.
The first phase of the plan was sanctioned by the Union government in May, 2003, for an amount of Rs.18.45 crore on a 70:30 cost sharing basis. The time frame fixed for implementing the project was four years which the State had failed to comply.
According to Pampa Parirakshana Samiti general secretary N.K. Sukumaran Nair, Pampa is the first river system from Kerala to be included in the NRCP.
Mr. Nair said there was every reason to suspect a conscious attempt to sabotage the PAP.
