Kochi: The newly-elected standing committee chairmen of the City Corporation have promised effective and immediate measures to take up welfare, health and road development programmes.
While attending a ‘meet the press’ programme organized by Ernakulam Press Club here on Wednesday, welfare committee chairman A.B Sabu promised that a decision will be taken on all welfare pension applications pending with the civic body within two weeks.
“Officials have been asked to submit report on 4000 old-age pension applications. The Rs. 13 crore allocated by the Union Government under the urban renewal mission will be used for various poverty alleviation projects. In addition, Rs. 1.25 crore will be spent to construct four shelter homes in the city which will temporarily house the homeless urban poor,” he said. The public works committee chairman P.M Haris promised that city roads would be upgraded in a phased manner. “Road safety, consolidation of cable laying works and mobile road patchwork facility will be given top priority. Centralized monitoring system will be introduced for resolving issues in street lighting,” he said.
Meanwhile, development committee chairperson Gracy Joseph claimed that 21 per cent of the Plan Funds has already been utilized. “Of the 564 Plan fund works, 534 have already been tendered and we hope nearly 80 per cent of the Plan funds can be utilized by the fiscal end. A meeting of officials and contractors will be convened soon to hasten the works,” she said.
The new health committee chairperson Adv. V.K Minimol stressed the need to focus on ensuring sanitation to tackle health hazards. “The hotels and restaurants will be given notice to ensure proper hygiene, clean kitchen and toilets and quality drinking water before applying for renewal of licence,” she said.
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