Urban Affairs Minister Manjalamkuzhy Ali said on Tuesday that the State government would, after evaluation, address the concerns aired by local body representatives regarding the changes in the project approval mechanism proposed in the guidelines for the 12 Five Year Plan.
He was inaugurating a training workshop on ‘Planning’ by the Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA) for representatives of urban local bodies. As per the new proposal, technical approval committees such as the State Level Technical Advisory Group (SLTAG) will be scrapped and instead higher officials of respective departments will be designated as project approval authority.
“Since these changes are being brought about on an experimental basis there is scope for making changes after we evaluate the results of these interventions,” he said.
While the participants of the workshop generally welcomed the new proposal, concerns were raised about the alternative proposal of designating department officials as project approval authorities.
