Thiruvananthapuram awaits funds for Swachh plans
The official said that the DPR was finalised and was approved by the Centre months ago.
Thiruvananthapuram: The much-trumpeted Rs 53 crores worth waste management scheme of the City Corporation has landed in a soup with the State and Centre not releasing funds for its execution. The civic body mooted the detailed project report for the scheme, which aims at strengthening and improvising the existing decentralised waste management initiative, to the Centre under the Swach Bharat initiative in 2018 and the deadline for the execution of the scheme is till October 2019.
"The project should be implemented using funds from the State, Centre and Corporation's plan fund. The state and the Centre are supposed to chip in 23.3 percent and 35 percent each respectively. The corporation would be putting in 41.7 percent of the total project cost," said the official.
The official said that the DPR was finalised and was approved by the Centre months ago.
"We submitted Rs 53 crores worth DPR and the Centre approved Rs 47 crores. Most of the projects are ready and in the tendering stage. Unfortunately, we are still in the dark on the scrapped projects in the DPR. The deadline would be over in October and we are yet to get funds from both the state and centre. Recently, the Centre has issued an order directing the state to release funds for the scheme," said the official.
The civic body is also gearing up to give a letter to the State requesting for funds. Health standing committee chairman K Sreekumar said that the civic body has decided to release plan funds for executing the projects. "The health committee has decided to use Plan Fund and the agenda would be placed for approval in the next council. We have set aside Rs 16 crores for executing the projects," said Mr Sreekumar.
As part of the project, the civic body is planning to install more kitchen bins, aerobic bins, CCTVs and plastic shredders. The civic body is also planning to install more advanced and durable aerobic bins as part of the scheme. "We are sure the Centre would extend the deadline for executing the projects as they haven't released the funds. We don't want the projects to get delayed. We have decided not to wait for the funds but tender the projects using our funds," said Mr Sreekumar.