The Hindu 17.02.2014
Corporation budget to focus on e-governance, transport
Highlighting e-governance projects and developments in urban transport sector, the civic administrators of Kochi Corporation will present their plans for the next fiscal on Monday. They will also put forward a proposal for treating septage in the budget.
B. Bhadra, Deputy Mayor and chairperson of the Finance Standing Committee of the Corporation, will present the budget at the council hall at 10.30 a.m.
According to a civic administrator, the e-governance programme was all set to be launched. City roads are in good condition and the Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority is about to be formed. There had also been significant improvement in the revenue of the local body, which would go up in the coming days, said the civic administrator.
The budget would reflect the ground realities and project the future growth path of the city, said the civic administrator.
At the same time, strained relation between the factions in the Congress is sure to create unpleasant moments for the ruling dispensation.
The ‘I’ faction leaders in the council have openly revolted against the regime and accused the administration of failing to implement any of the promises made earlier.
T.J. Vinod, chairman of the Development Standing Committee of the Corporation, said the administration didn’t take any effort to implement the promises made in the last budgets.
Except for Kochi marathon, the civic administration could not translate into reality any of its promises. A section of the Congress councillors was not involved in the preparatory works. The civic administration had failed in governance, Mr. Vinod said. K.N. Sunilkumar, the parliamentary party secretary of the CPI(M) in the council, pointed out that the civic administration could not take forward projects such as formation of Kochi Metro Transport Corporation, new waste treatment plant at Brahmapuram and development of Thammanam-Pullepady road.
The authorities even backtracked from its earlier decision to assign KITCO the task of preparing project documents for the Pachalam rail overbridge. It had also promised to transport refuse from the city to the waste treatment plant during night hours in covered vehicles. The local body could not keep its word on any of these promises, he said.
