Kochi Corporation to bring in changes in project proposals

KOCHI: With the Kochi Corporation utterly failing to utilise the major portion of the annual fund allocation, the civic body has decided to bring two drastic changes to the annual project proposals to prevent fund lapse. The special council meeting held on Wednesday decided to bring the amendments in the project proposals.

As per the new move, the Corporation has decided to drop some of the projects planned for the 2017-18 fiscal year. Meanwhile, some projects have been also converted into multi-year projects by allocating a portion of the funds during the current fiscal. Around 11 projects which would come to around Rs 1 crore have been dropped from the proposals.

“With this new project, the Corporation will be able to save a considerable amount. Also, we can reduce the number of spillover projects in the next fiscal. The projects converted into the multi year project will never expire this fiscal as they can be included in the next fiscal too,” said Mayor Soumini Jain during the special council.

The Mayor also said the Corporation can improve the fund utilisation from 40 per cent to 70 per cent by the end of March if all the officers and the councillors work together. “At present, Kochi Corporation ranks fourth among the 6 Corporations. Compared to the city, the other civic bodies’ projects are less in number. We have over 1,600 projects to be implemented this fiscal and it has resulted in the low-level ranking. But if we all work together the ranking will improve,” said the Mayor. The Corporation had to implement a total of 1,666 projects worth Rs 205.21 crore this year, including 582 spillover works.

Meanwhile, the opposition came down against the Corporation as they alleged the civic body’s laxity delayed the implementation of projects. “The Kochi Corporation has completely ignored the government guidelines for implementing the plan fund projects. As per the government direction, around 70 per cent of the projects need to be implemented before February, but the Corporation took a stand against the government guidelines. As per the report of the Planning Commission, the civic body could only spend 35 per cent of its fund allocated for implementing the annual project,” said councillor K J Antony, lashing out against the Mayor during the special council.

He said with the lackadaisical attitude of the Corporation will adversely affect the development project of over Rs 200 cr. “Only 30 working days are left for implementing over 1,600 projects. With the Corporation sitting over it, several projects will be dropped from Implementing it. For a Kochi resident it will be a great loss,” he said. V P Chandran, Benedict Fernandez, Poornima Narayan, Deputy Mayor T J Vinodh and other councillors also participated in the debate.