Post News network
Cuttack: Even though Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) has initiated the process to prepare budget proposals for the 2016-16 fiscal, there is little discussion about the civic body’s failure to implement 63 special projects proposed in the budget for 2015-16.
Work on any of these special projects, proposed to be undertaken at an expenditure of Rs 32.50 crore, could not start due to non-availability of funds, said CMC officials. In its budget proposals for 2015-16, CMC had proposed to construct a state-of-the-art multi-auditorium and a working women’s hostel at an expenditure of Rs 1 crore and Rs 50 lakh respectively. The civic body had also proposed to set up a few health centres in the city and a new deer park at an outlay of Rs 10 crore and Rs 5 crore respectively.
The municipal corporation had also proposed to build a new modern building to house its offices at a cost of Rs 10 crore. It had also expressed its commitment to set up market complexes at various strategic locations in the city so as to allot shops to street vendors at affordable rents. Around Rs 10 crore was proposed to be spent on the market complexes project. The CMC council had also proposed several minor projects to upgrade civic amenities.
However, the civic body failed to implement even a single special project out of the 63 it had mentioned in the budget proposals for the current fiscal.
Many corporators blamed the poor financial condition of the civic body for non-implementation of the special projects. “The state government has raised the number of wards under the civic body to 59 from 54. But it is yet to provide any additional financial aid. Financial crunch is the main reason behind non-implementation of the projects,” said Chiranjay Sahu, corporator and chairman of CMC’s standing committee on works.
Deputy mayor Ajay Barik, who is also chairman of CMC’s standing committee on finance, said while foundation stones for a few projects were laid, construction work could not start due to shortage of funds. “We have raised the poor condition of our finances with the state government and urged it to increase funds for us,” said Barik.
A few corporators also alleged that the present regime at CMC is not trying to augment generation of the civic body’s own resources to meet the ever-increasing expenses. “The higher-ups of CMC are not introducing any special measures to raise revenue generation. They have also failed to collect around Rs 5 crore dues as fee on hoardings. No step is being taken to collect pending dues from shopkeepers who are using CMC market complexes,” said corporator Dharmanand Patra.
