The city Corporation will fast-track the preparation of its annual plan for the financial year 2018-19. The local body plans to submit the plan to the District Planning Committee by November this year. The advanced preparation of the plan is in view of the State Government’s directive to complete the works early as the Lok Sabha elections are scheduled to be held next year and also the by-election to the Kinavoor ward of the local body is set be held later this year.
An emergency council meeting was held on Monday to discuss the recommendations put forward by the development standing committee for the re-organising of the planning committee and working groups. In addition to the existing 19 working groups, an additional one has been created in view of the recent floods, for the sectors of biodiversity management, climate change, environmental protection and disaster management.
The opposition councillors of the Bharatiya Janata Party and United Democratic Front alleged that many of the projects from the past four years are pending, due to which the councillors might have to face the ire of the public at the ward sabhas.
BJP Councillor Girikumar questioned whether 50% of the plan allocation has been utilised in any of the four years of the current council. The opposition councillors also criticised the lack of enough time for the planning process this year. UDF councillor V.R.Sini said that it will be difficult to complete the entire process in 36 days.
LDF councillor Palayam Rajan said that the Corporation managed a fund utilisation of 65% in 2017-18, despite a long-drawn out tender boycott by the contractors against the increased tax for civil works under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) system.
The local body was also the first to submit its plan the previous year.
Mayor V.K.Prasanth, in his reply said that the Corporation had more expenditure than the other Corporations despite the percentage being lower compared to them.
“There are issues in the implementation stage as ours is a big local body. This year, we have completed 20.96% expenditure till date. Though Kozhikode is the first with ₹39 crore spending, we have spent ₹57 crore. We have been able to get all our 131 revision projects approved by the DPC. The allegation that no works have been completed is untrue. We have been able to hand over keys to 720 flats and also provide funds to buy land for 391 beneficiaries. Out of the 658 civil works, 354 have been completed,” he said.
Councillors’ delay
The Mayor said that there have been delays on the part of the councillors too in some cases, especially in handing over the list of beneficiaries of various schemes. He said that the local body will get one whole year for project implementation if the plan is approved by December.