KOCHI: It is almost a year since the UDF took the reins of the Kochi Corporation. The change of hands has not seen the expected changes as far as development goes. With the council set to celebrate its first anniversary, Express puts under scanner the performance of the various departments of the corporation in alleviating the problems of the people and the status of the people-friendly projects.Expectations skyrocketed when Kochi got a young Mayor. Not only Tony Chammany, but also his crew. The rest of the members and the Corporation secretary are full of youth and vigour, yet the Corporation does not have many proud moments to project over the last one year. Town Planning experts point out that the much-awaited ‘change of direction’ that the public expected from a bunch of young leaders did not happen and it is a major drawback when you go for a performance analysis of the council for the last one year. “It is a very young leadership. Naturally we expect the policy making and administrative decisions to have a modern outlook and go for technology-driven proposals. Unfortunately, that is yet to happen,” they said. Experts said that the major duties that have to be discharged by an elected body can be categorised into Servicing, Restrictive and Promotive. Here is an evaluation of the performance of the present council in the last one year. Servicing Under this, the activities of the corporation in the service sector are being evaluated. The UDF targeted poor roads during the election campaign which helped it defeat the LDF. However, it boomeranged as the roads in Kochi remained in bad shape during the rain. The situation could have been avoided if the corporation had taken necessary steps to finish the pre-monsoon repair work in a time-bound manner and qualitatively. However, the civic body had embarked on the road repair work last month and it will be a relief to commuters if the roads are maintained properly.Among the positive steps taken by corporation in this regard, the Road Conclave was a novel idea. “Though late, the decision to organise the Road Conclave was a positive move. This will help it in improving the quality of the roads in future,” said an experienced Town Planner.PromotiveThis is one sector where the corporation has nothing to boast of. Though they blamed the former council for the bad state of the Brahmapuram Solid Waste Treatment, the present team is yet to take any steps to solve the issue. The scientific capping is only a temporary measure, a permanent plan is yet to be implemented. A new plant was suggested by the Health Department, but it remains on paper. “When the LDF was in power, they had several ideological difficulties to implement the projects. The party was against public-private-participation (PPP) model. But there are no such restrictions for the UDF which has enough support from the Central and state governments,” said experts. They pointed out that the civic body could utilise maximum support and look for more projects for the overall development of the city.RestrictiveThe frequent raids conducted by the Health Department in the hotels and hostels and the tax collection drive were the major restrictive measures undertaken by the corporation. It was a good idea by the corporation to assess the existing buildings and bring them under the tax umbrella. But sources with the corporation said that the civic body failed in curbing corruption in various departments under it.“Earlier, the Mayor used to conduct inspections on various offices under the Corporation. The majority of the offices are not even maintaining a proper attendance register. Bribery is rampant,” sources said.e-GovernanceExperts said the implementation of e-Governance would help make the system more transparent. “The council is doing everything to speed up the implementation of the e-Governance project. It took almost six months for them to award the tender to TCS. Once e-Governance is implemented, bribery could be curbed to a certain extent,” they said.Financial CrisisThough it is true that the corporation is facing severe financial crunch, the experts said that the civic body is still negligent of some of the reforms that can be used for augmenting tax collection . “It was after 17 years that the government amended the tax structure and gave consent to the local bodies to go for floor-area-based tax assessment. The new system will bring a considerable increase in the taxes. Though the neighbouring panchayats and municipalities have notified this amendment, Kochi Corporation is yet to take any steps in this regard,” experts said.The experts also said that the corporation should be given priority for completing the projects proposed in the budget. “What they can do is to give priority to some of the key projects suggested in the budget. It will increase its credibility. It is only the first year and there is still scope for improvement. They should try to complete the projects proposed in the budget before March 2012 and should come up with a new budget next year with an array of novel proposals,” they said.
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