The Times of India                    29.10.2010

 MYSORE: Deputy commissioner Harsh Gupta's move to stop weekly review meetings of JNNURM has been criticized by corporators.

Corporator B L Bhyrappa, the leader of the ruling party in the Mysore City Corporation, on Thursday slammed Gupta saying it has deprived the elected representatives and the public of the updates about the Centre's ambitious scheme for urban renewal. He set November 10 as a deadline for the DC to call a review meeting.

Referring to then DC P Manivannan's move to review the JNNURM projects weekly, Bhyrappa stated: "After his transfer, his successor has not held the review meetings and we don't know what is happening on the ground."

Following the transfer of Manivannan, Gupta was appointed the DC, but there was confusion on whether he would continue to be the special officer. Subsequently, Gupta approached the government and he was made the JNNURM in-charge like his predecessor. But he has not held any open review meetings.

This comes amidst the demands that the senior official in the rank of the principal secretary should be appointed the special officer. Mysore MP A H Vishwanath has asked the CM to post senior IAS officer Amitha Prasad as the director-general of ATI.

While other JNNURM cities have utilized crores of funds to create/upgrade infrastructure, Mysore administrators are lagging behind. "Now we don't know the progress of the projects that are implemented," he stated, adding that the issue will be raised during Friday's MCC Council meeting.