The Hindu 27.06.2013
Central funds lapsed due to delays: audit
Corporation accused of going slow on SLB
The Kozhikode Corporation
governing body on Tuesday won comfortably a no-confidence motion moved
by the Opposition against Mayor A.K. Premajam.
But
the audit report for the year 2010-11, which was obtained using a Right
to Information petition filed by K.P. VIjayakumar, convener of the
Corporation Anti-Corruption Campaign Committee, is sure to be another
hurdle for the ruling CPI(M).
A major finding of the
report is that Central funds amounting to Rs. 1.15 crore had lapsed due
to delay in action on the part of the Corporation in implementing the
Service Level Benchmark (SLB) project to ensure minimum standards in
drinking water distribution, solid waste processing, waste water
disposal, and storm water drainage. Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram
were the two cities selected among the 20 cities selected for the pilot
project.
A core committee was required to be formed
at the local body level to supervise the project. Though the committee
was formed, no meetings were conducted for several months. The project
proposal was prepared only after 9 months, after a reminder from the
Local Self-Government Department secretary. The first instalment of Rs.
49.20 lakh (30 per cent of the entire amount) was passed by the Centre
with a condition that the action plan and the fund utilisation report
should be submitted within three months for the next instalment to be
released. However, it was submitted only eight months later by which
time the time period to utilise the first instalment was over.
For
the delay in utilisation, the Corporation authorities said 48 per cent
of the funds was supposed to be utilised by the Kerala Water Authority
(KWA). But the work was never entrusted to the KWA. The first
expenditure from the funds was only in December 2012, eight months after
it was sanctioned, a move which is termed ‘namesake’ in the audit
report. This money was spent on buying computers for the 23 health
circles in the Corporation, of which only 11 circles had accepted it
even after 6 months. Funds to the tune of Rs. 9.46 lakh spent on this
should be seen as ‘diversion of funds’, as per the report.
The
project was cancelled as per a clause in the agreement and the Ministry
of Urban Development ordered the first instalment to be remitted back
with interest.
Also, an amount of Rs. 1 crore
earmarked for the Hunger-free City project, aimed at providing at least
one free meal a day to the poor and hungry, had lapsed.
The Hindu
had reported on June 24 that the project which was set up on the Medical
College campus in 2009 to feed the poor patients and their helpers had
been working out of a dilapidated shed.
The Kerala
Social Security Mission (KSSM) handed over a modern kitchen built at a
cost of Rs. 65.41 lakh to the Corporation, which was supposed to run it
using 20 trained kudumbasree units. But the kitchen and the equipment
inside have not been put to use till date. Since no action was taken on
the project, ‘an amount of Rs. 1 crore allocated by the State government
in the 2009-10 budget had lapsed’.
The audit report
also pulled up the Corporation for lapses in collecting professional
tax, advertisement tax, and the rent of shopping complexes and buildings
owned by it. The amount collected had come down drastically in
comparison to previous years.