Kochi: On the last day for submitting bills of 2018-19 Plan fund works on Wednesday, Kochi Corporation could spend 72 per cent of its fund allocation. As per the latest data, Kozhikode tops the list among the six municipal corporations while Kochi is on the second position. Last year, Kochi Corpor-ation spent 76.07 per cent of the allocation.
The Corporation had proposed 1100 projects worth Rs 128 crore for the current fiscal.
The state government has earlier set March 27 as the deadline for submitting bills for the current fiscal to avoid the entering of all bills altogether at one go until the wee hours of April 1. This year Mar-ch 31 is Sunday.
As per the Finance Department’s circular to local bodies bills received after 27th will be lined up in the treasury queue. They will be prioritised accordingly. If the bills are received in large number, those received even before March 28 might not be cashed before the end of the current fiscal.
“As the finance department lifted the treasury curbs a week ago, the corporation’s pending bills worth several crores have be-en cleared. More than 200 bills of the civic body were pending with the treasury. Once, the backlog has been cleared bills of major Plan fund works were submitted last week. As per the data on Wed-nesday, corporation could spend 72 per cent of the annual fund allocation which may incr-ease by two or three per cent once the final figure is calculated,” Gracy Joseph, chairperson of Corporation development committee told DC.
According to Mayor Soumini Jain, 72 per cent of Plan fund expe-nditure is a remarkable achievement as the civ-ic body had to face ma-ny challenges including non-cooperation of civic contractors, bure-aucrats and unexpected treasury restriction.
Earlier, several contractors had stopped works citing paucity of funds, caused by non-clearance of bills submitted.
