Dist fails to utilise ` 59 cr released for development

This was disclosed by Deputy Commissioner K Amarnarayan at the KDP meeting held here on Tuesday. He said the government had released 60 per cent of the money in the current fiscal but the departments have hardly used even 30 per cent of the funds.

Actually they should have utilised ` 33.85 crore by this time and unfortunately not much efforts had been done in this direction. Interestingly, heads of some departments do not have information regarding the availability of the funds let alone spending it.

The DC said the district had also failed to utilise `  4.13 crore sanctioned to ease drinking water crisis. Even the PWD is lagging in utilising `  7.43 crore for the development of roads. The grants being reserved for tribal development programmes has remained unspent.

Amarnarayan took strong objection over delay in the construction of houses for the BPL families identified for various government schemes. The heads of agriculture, health and family welfare department have also failed to implement several programmes. The officials should utilise the funds before March 31, he noted.

Video conferencing

He said the chief secretary will hold video conferencing in March to collect information regarding the completion of projects being undertaken by various department in the current financial year. The CS would interact with the officials directly. Those who failed to do their jobs would definitely land in trouble, he warned.

The DC also took the officials to task for having failed to solve drinking water problems in the district despite all the reservoirs are full thanks to copious rains. The district is reeling under dry spell and people were facing the shortage of drinking water in several villages. This kind of indifference attitude of officials would not be tolerated henceforth.

Spot inspection   

He said he would do spot inspection of the works being taken up under the Special Unit Development programmes following complaints from general public. The officers should keep the records ready at the time of his inspection.

Zilla Panchayat president B M Muniraju directed the Deputy Commissioner to recommend the government to take action against officials who have failed to utilise the funds earmarked for improvement of backward taluks. Vice-President S Shivakumar, Zilla Panchayat Chief Executive Officer K Sundarnayak, Deputy Secretary Gudur Bheemasen were present at the meeting.