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City Corporation Budget Passed as Opposition Alleges Error

Wednesday, 12 February 2014 11:19 administrator
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The New Indian Express            12.02.2014

City Corporation Budget Passed as Opposition Alleges Error

Photo courtesy - Thiruvananthapuram corporation official website
Photo courtesy - Thiruvananthapuram corporation official website

Amidst the opposition’s claims that there are little or no new development projects announced in the budget, the annual financial outlay of Rs 1,077.63 crore of the City Corporation for the financial year 2014-15 was passed on Tuesday.

In the less-than-an-hour-long council meeting, no head-wise discussion was held on the budget proposals also. The Opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) councillors failed to put forward any new proposals for a budget they had claimed to be a rewind of the previous year’s version.

As soon as the discussion began, opposition councillor K Maheswaran Nair pointed out an error in the budget data which led to a ruckus in the council. Meanwhile, some of the UDF councillors demanded voting as they said that if the difference in the data is rectified, the budget may turn a deficit budget. However, Mayor K Chandrika gave the ruling for voting and the budget was passed with 49 votes against 36.

According to the Municipality Act, 5 per cent of the total revenue should be earmarked for developmental activities and 2 per cent for poverty eradication. The opposition claimed that this has been included in the revenue expenditure but not in the capital amount.

The start of the council meeting was delayed by half-an-hour as the members, including the Mayor, arrived late. The proceedings did not last for more than one hour and the budget was passed without any amendments or the inclusion of new projects. During the discussion, the Mayor admonished the lackadaisical attitude shown by the councillors and criticised them for creating disorder.

The UDF members, who then moved out of the Council Hall raising slogans, staged a dharna in front of the Corporation office and burned copies of the budget. Addressing the dharna, UDF leader Johnson Joseph said that the budget was prepared with mere political intentions. The finance committee deliberately brought an error in the budget so that they could hide the shortfall, he alleged.

 

LEDs to light up Hyderabad's Outer Ring Road soon

Wednesday, 12 February 2014 07:46 administrator
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Deccan Chronicle             12.02.2014

LEDs to light up Hyderabad's Outer Ring Road soon

Picture for representational purpose only.

Hyderabad: For the first time in the country, LEDs are to be installed along an eight-lane expressway. Following a green signal from the state government, the 24-km stretch of the Outer Ring Road, from Gachibowli to Shamshabad, will be lit up with light emitting diodes in the coming months.

The Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority is to take up the project with a Rs 30 crore loan assistance from the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

Generally, sodium or mercury vapour lights are used along highways; but the HMDA has opted for LEDs in order to save power and because they do not need frequent replacements.

To light up the ORR, the HMDA needs each light outputting 120-125 watts of illumination. The LEDs can produce the light while consuming lesser power than other categories of bulbs.

Each pole will have two arms with lights on the sides to illuminate the eight carriageways. Power saving is one of the reasons for taking the LED route, but installing solar panels is not yet an option.

 

32 of 42 BMC structures shaky, need to be vacated

Wednesday, 12 February 2014 05:53 administrator
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The Indian Express              12.02.2014

32 of 42 BMC structures shaky, need to be vacated

Only 42 of 472 structural audits done since Dockyard Road collapse. 

Over four months after the Dockyard Road building collapse, a BMC meeting has revealed that only 42 of 472 structural audit work orders issued by the civic estates department have been completed so far. This does not include the BMC’s various properties that are under the care of municipal departments such as Solid Waste Management, Public Health, including hospitals, and Mumbai Fire Brigade.

According to the minutes of the February 9 administration meeting chaired by Municipal Commissioner Sitaram Kunte and attended by additional municipal commissioners and Class-I civic officers, the structural audit report of 32 of the 42 buildings recommend evacuation. This has left BMC worried, with officials expecting a larger number of buildings that require to be evacuated as audit reports trickle in during the coming days. To compound the problem, there is growing unavailability of tenements for sudden mass rehabilitation of residents, commercial tenants and offices from dilapidated civic properties.

“Structural audit work orders for 472 buildings have been issued till date by the Estates Department. It is now reported that 32 buildings, out of the 42 structural audit reports received till date, need to be evacuated,” said Deputy Municipal Commissioner Milind Sawant (Improvements) in the meeting’s minutes.

Sawant “expressed fear” that a larger number of estate buildings would have to be evacuated, as more audit reports come in.
Acknowledging the problem, Kunte said, “With so many buildings to be evacuated, this has come across as a major challenge for us. If the audit report says evacuation is needed, there is no other option. We are working on how to go about the evacuation and have already made a major budget allocation for repairs and reconstruction of civic buildings.”

Following the collapse of the Babu Genu market building in Dockyard Road on September 27 last year, the BMC ordered the structural audits of all civic-owned buildings that were over 30 years of old and those seeming to be  in a dilapidated condition.

The corporation promised to carry out and submit the audits in a month. The reports were to be scrutinised by an expert committee which would decide the techno-financial action plan wherein evacuation, propping, demolition, structural repair and reconstruction of the structures would be decided. However, soon after the term of the appointed expert panel of 12 structural auditors expired in January, the BMC set up a new panel of 50 auditors.

According to the civic budget estimates for the 2014-2015 fiscal, almost two per cent of the budget or Rs 541.5 crore has been dedicated for maintenance of dilapidated civic-owned buildings. It was also decided at the meeting that user departments and respective ward offices would look after repairs and demolition that cost less than Rs 25 lakh; work that costs more than Rs 25 lakh would be handled by the Planning & Design department.

 
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