It has dawned on the Aluva West village office that expecting a quick elevation to a smart office might not have been a smart move.
The State government had announced the scheme of developing a village office each district as a smart office more than a year ago. Except for a half-baked structure at the Aluva West village office added to the existing office, there is no work done to speed up the transition into a smart office. Works to expand the existing office was stopped due to pending dues of the completed works. It resumed only on Saturday.
Sources said that there was no way the works were going to be completed by December as originally planned. Anwar Sadat, Aluva MLA, said that he would intervene in the issue and take up the matter with the authorities concerned.
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Though works aimed at giving a smart makeover to the village office had been initiated, officials concerned still had only sketchy details about what changes it would entail. “All that we know is that there would be a front office with seating facilities to assist the public,” said an official.
Initially, the government had sanctioned Rs. 1.40 crore for developing smart villages, with a sealing of Rs. 10 lakh for each office.
However, estimates submitted by Habitat Technology Group, the agency entrusted with the implementation of the scheme, assessed that the sanctioned amount would be adequate for upgrading only 12 villages leaving out village offices in Alappuzha and Thiruvananthapuram districts.
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The government scrutinised the matter in detail and sanctioned the revised the amount for upgrading offices in the first phase.