Civic bodies fail to use funds: but don’t fail to go on tours: Belgaum

The government had announced Rs 100 crore in the Budget for each of the city corporations, including Hubli-Dharwad, Mangalore, Mysore, Gulbarga, Belgaum, Davanagere and Bellary.
No one other than the Bangalore Bruhat Mahanagara Palike has shown their interest in utilizing these funds.
It’s almost end of December, none of these corporations have spent a single paisa yet. This attitude of the local bodies is being attributed to a combination of official apathy and the elected representatives’ lack of interest in preparing an action plan, as the guidelines made it compulsory to start permanent work instead of repairs.
The government had directed the civic bodies to utilize the funds for creation of infrastructure like roads, tanks, sewerage and drinking water facilities.
Even if now these local bodies plan to spend it, not more than Rs.50 cores can be spent.
Some of these civic bodies have not even prepared an action plan to spend the Rs 17 crore released in the first installment, the officer said. Sources said that Bellary and Hubli-Dharwad City Corporations have prepared an action plan for about Rs 60-65 crore.
After continuous pressure from the top, civic bodies of Mysore, Mangalore and Davanagere have promised to prepare an action plan for Rs 36 crore, Rs 25 crore and Rs 50 crore respectively. Gulbarga and Belgaum, however, have not even proposed to prepare such an action plan.
Our City corporation Mayor and other authorities only want to tour, give a momento to the CM and ask for more funds for development. They don’t want to make use of the funds already allotted to them. Rs.100 crores for a year is huge amount and if a plan was made and the money had been utilized, maybe there would have been some good roads.
As the Belgaum Corporation has no plans made the money Rs.100 crore will go back to the State govt. as un utilized. This is a very nice example of the working of the local civic bodies. Why nothing concrete was planned has to be seen.
Source: ExpressBuzz