JOIN USThe special meeting convened to discuss and review progress of drinking water project witnessed noisy scenes with members alleging officials carrying out the works in a snail’s pace. As many as 848 projects executed from 2008 till date have not been completed despite releasing Rs 13 crore. The engineering section has come out with the revised estimates for 567 projects of the total 848 projects, A S Nataraju said.
While, other members Mahadeva Shetty, Somanayaka, ShivaMurthy supported Nataraju’s contention and said that officials have revised estimates and submitted it to the chief engineer of the State without seeking approval of the meeting. “The council has no job here. The officials are not bothered to bring the estimates of the projects before the meeting,” they said.
A total of 709 projects were supposed to be completed during the year 2008-09 and thZP needs around Rs 12.69 crore for this purpose.
The ZP has given administrative approval for 139 projects worth Rs 1.46 crore in the year 2008-09. In total, 848 projects are pending till date requiring about Rs 14.15 crore. Though, about Rs 9 crore had been released in current financial year, the works are going on slowly.
In his reply, CEO Sundar Nayak said that as per the new policy, the technical department is allowed to prepare the estimates and directly send it to the Government. Accordingly, the government has released Rs 9 crore for the drinking water project in current fiscal, he said.