Kochi Corporation’s fund utilisation for ongoing fiscal may exceed ₹70 crore, says Mayor

The Kochi Corporation may be able to spend nearly ₹70 crore of the allocations for the 2024-25 financial year, Mayor M. Anilkumar has said.

The utilisation may exceed ₹70 crore when bills on expenditure for ₹23.47 crore on infrastructure are considered. In the manufacturing sector, only ₹3 crore has been spent out of the allocation of ₹18 crore.

Addressing the Corporation Council meeting on Tuesday (February 25), Mr. Anilkumar said weekly review meetings should be convened by the development standing committee chairperson to improve fund utilisation in the production sector. The draft of development projects for the 2025-26 fiscal to be discussed at the development seminar was also presented at the meeting.

Projects for agriculture, animal husbandry, dairy development, fisheries, housing, drinking water, Scheduled Caste development, and women’s development have been included in the draft of projects to be discussed at the seminar.

The Opposition Congress slammed the Corporation for tardy fund utilisation with only a month remaining for the end of the ongoing financial year. They alleged that the Corporation was languishing in the fourth place. Only 46.20% funds have been utilised so far across three sectors. Out of the 1,780 projects conceived, only 576 projects could be completed.

In the manufacturing sector, it was even worse, with only ₹3.58 crore utilised out of the ₹18.50 crore allocated. In the services sector, only ₹29.86 crore has been spent out of ₹268.34 crore, while in the infrastructure sector, it was ₹31.02 crore out of ₹80.68 crore. Out of the 1,057 spill-over projects, 497 could be completed, while for the ongoing fiscal only 79 out of the 723 projects could be completed, the opposition said.

The utilisation of the development fund in the general category was 46.03%, while in the Scheduled Caste category, it was 36.91% and in the tribal sub plan category, it was 7.70%. In the maintenance grant (road) category, the utilisation was 63.40%, while in the non-road category, it was 35.51%.