Local bodies: Obsolete norms waste funds

KOCHI: The obsolete norms prescribed by the government has come in the way of the local bodies to utilise the funds allocated for them. Representatives of various local bodies said they find their hands tied as they cannot not pursue any government projects with the  contradictory norms and limited funds. District Planning Committee meeting convened on Thursday analysed that the local bodies have utilised only 26.26 per cent of the fund earmarked for various projects.Kumbalam grama panchayat president A J Joseph said that they are finding it difficult to utilise the fund as they cannot find beneficiaries coming forward to avail the resources. “In most cases, the funds allocated are not sufficient to cater to the needs of the people and this is restricting them from making use of the funds. For instance, the financial assistance provided for the maintenance and repairing works is only of `7500, to those who belong to the general category. Besides, the fund can be provided only after they submit the required documents. This is not feasible in many cases as the cost of such repair works exceed much more than that,” he said.Joseph said that this is the case with most of the projects. “The fund allotted to the Schedule Caste category to build a house with `1 lakh and factually, with this amount a beneficiary cannot do much in constructing a house,” he said. He added that with the limited facilities, they are trying their level best to upgrade their post as they were tagged as one of the least spent grama panchayat in the District Planning Committee meeting. The Kochi Corporation officials also do have the same reason to offer. K J Sohan, Chairman, Town Planning Standing Committee has said that most of the projects are going awry for the want of outdated norms. “There are many obsolete government norms which need to be redefined. In the case of Pachalam ROB, the maximum amount granted by the government was `14-crore. If this land has to be acquired, it would come around `138-crore,” he said. He added that under various schemes of the government the daily wages given is `150 and for this amount nobody is ready to take up a job due to which, most of the projects lag behind,” he said.District Collector P I Sheik Pareeth said that the transfer of officials coupled with inadequate staff has been putting lots of impediments. “There are 49 vacancies for village extension officers to be filled. Apart from that, most projects submitted by the local bodies is short of meticulous need basis analysis. All these shortcomings have to be rectified for the smooth functioning of any project,” he said.Till February 15, grama panchayats have spent 31.85 per cent, block panchayats 31.99, district panchayat 14.31, Municipality 28.92 and the Corporation 26.54. Among grama panchayats, Keerambara and Kumbalam have spent the least.