The Kochi Corporation could not be held responsible for the slow progress of the Cochin Smart City projects, said Mayor Soumini Jain here on Wednesday.
Responding to media reports in this regard, Ms. Jain said that road modernisation, LED lamp project, Safe and Secure Kochi and Crimes and Surveillance Systems projects that were earlier cleared by the local body had reached nowhere.
The Kochi Municipal Council had also approved the tenders floated for the Intelligent Traffic System project. Though the project design for the Ernakulam market project was cleared earlier, it was also not implemented. The municipal council had been cooperating with the mission projects, she said.
The activities of the mission were controlled by a director board which was under the State government and hence, the local body could not be blamed for the non-implementation of the projects. The local body, which had 50% stake in the mission, was willing to own up the failures. However, it had not been given adequate representation in the decision-making process, she said.
The activities of the local body had not been hit due to any political uncertainty. If at all there had been any lethargy in the activities of the corporation, it was due to the limitations of the institution which had been there for decades, Ms. Jain said in a statement.
