Coastal Development Authority marred by apathy

The fate of Coastal Development Authority (CDA), established in 2009 as a statutory body with an objective to carry out various development works in Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Uttara Kannada districts, is marred by apathy as no full-time chairman has been appointed for the past year.

After the former chairperson of the Authority and former MLA Sharada Mohan Shetty completed her tenure on April 12, 2018, senior IAS officer Chakravarthi Mohan, has been deputed as the chairman of the CDA.

Without a full-time chairman, it has been difficult to follow up the budgetary allocations from the government. Normally, the budgetary allocations end up in deficit.

Moreover, out of the allocated funds, a major amount is spent towards administrative expense as there are no separate funds for administrative purposes.

For instance, in 2017-18, Rs 15.86 crore was released out of a budgetary allocation of Rs 20 crore.

As much as Rs 15.76 crore was spent towards various development works and Rs 1.17 crore was incurred towards administrative purposes, resulting in a deficit.

In 2018-19, Rs 9.11 crore was announced in the budget for the works to be carried out by the CDA and Rs 4.55 crore was released resulting in the proposed works getting held up. Several spill over works from the previous years need to be completed with the freshly released grants.

Lack of byelaw

Even after 10 years of its establishment, Coastal Development Authority lacks a full-fledged bylaw defining the powers of the authority.

Sources said that many programmes could not be implemented effectively due to various constraints, such as the lack of funds and due to the absence of a proper byelaw.

A proposal has been submitted to the government long ago to form the byelaw.

But, there has been no positive response from the government.