The Hindu 22.03.2013
Time runs out for civic body
Kozhikode: In what is the last council meeting of the Kozhikode Corporation this financial year, 75 councillors came together on Wednesday, knowing that time had once again got the better of their welfare plans for the city. With only a few days left for the end of the financial year 2012-13, the civic body has implemented just about 50 per cent of the development and welfare measures allotted for the year. The rest may lapse, or, with some luck, get carried over to the next year. The “urgent meeting” presided over by Mayor A.K. Premajam witnessed frantic efforts by the Left Democratic Front (LDF)-led civic body to save schemes by clearing them one after the other with hardly a discussion. The council will meet again only for the budget presentation on March 23. Discussions on the budget would be held consecutively on March 25 and 26.
Leader of the Opposition M.T. protested that the official agenda was distributed very late among the councillors, giving them hardly any time to read through it. But the Mayor blamed it on the State government. “We received a general instruction note dated March 13 from the State Coordination Committee on March 18. It advised us to re-validate our pending schemes and make data entries of it by March 17. How is it physically possible for us to do this? You tell me,” Mayor told The Hindu .
Ms. Premajam said that now even with the
instructions from the State-level coordination panel of the Local
Self-Government Department reaching them late, all they could bank on
for welfare measures this year was a 10 per cent “extra fund” left of
what the Finance Commission had allotted to them. “We have decided to
use this amount, which is around Rs.65 lakh, to complete two essential
issues. One, a scheme to install single-tube streetlights and the other
to settle pending dues of up to Rs.45 lakh for land we had acquired,”
the Mayor said. The streetlight project, estimated at Rs.30 lakh, would
be allotted Rs.19 lakh.
