City Corporation spends 95.87% plan funds

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The City Corporation, by setting aside funds with due vigilance for ongoing projects, has achieved 95.87-per cent expenditure in the 2011-12 Plan year, Mayor K Chandrika said at a press meet here on Tuesday. ‘’Despite wasting our resources and time on the Vilappilsala issue, we have become the most spending Corporation this Plan year,’’ she said. Apart from abandoning projects worth Rs 9.85 lakh which were summed up as impractical ones, the Corporation deposited money in all ongoing projects, which helped in increasing the expenditure, Works Standing Committee Chairperson V S Padmakumar said.  The Corporation has set aside money for EMS Project, spent money on electricity-water deposits with KSEB and KWA and set aside money for its e-governance project, which will be taking off soon. The Corporation has started implementing the pipe-compost project, for which, again, funds have been set aside. The Government had allotted Rs 5.75 crore for decentralised waste management project to the Corporation. This, along with the Rs 2.3 crore of the Corporation, has been deposited in a dedicated account, the Mayor said. She added that all deposits have been okayed by the Government.  Only last week, the Corporation Council had been lamenting over the delay in Plan fund implementation and meeting Ministers to tide over the crisis. Then how come the Corporation registered its record spending in a week? To this, the Mayor credited her implementing officials, saying that they had put in loads of hard work, burning the midnight oil, to get the cash registers ticking.  The Corporation spent ` 76 crore in the general category from the total of Rs 103 crore in the Plan fund. For the development of 130 slums, Rs 25 crore was spent. The amounts spent in the other categories are: for water supply for SC category, Rs 3.5 crore; for installing electric posts, Rs 1.15 crore; and for turning Kanjirampara UP School into a model school, Rs  30 lakh. The ‘Haritha Nagaram’ project, which promotes terrace farming, has been set aside ` 1 crore.