Rs 156 cr of councillors’ funds lapses

Of the Rs 266 crores booked,tendering could be done for just 50 per cent of the amount,say sources from MCD. This means that in total,Delhi may be looking at a loss of nearly Rs 300 crore of the Rs 422 crore allotted. The civic body is currently compiling data on the same.

Yogender Chandolia,Chairman of the MCD Standing Committee,said the funds have lapsed because many of the councillors did not book the developmental work by March 22,which was set as the last date. “There was also a server problem and so work could not be done,” he said.

On Thursday,the Standing Committee asked the MCD commissioner to provide details on the exact amount of money from the estimated Rs 156 crore that has lapsed due to the administrative delay. Several councillors raised the issue of the lapse of funds in the MCD Standing Committee meeting on Thursday.

The civic agency had made it mandatory that while development work worth upto Rs 50 lakh can be awarded manually,the rest has to be processed online to ensure transparency. For spending their funds on developmental activities,MCD councillors were told to ask the junior engineer in their area to make bookings. An estimate was to be prepared and the amount booked online at the MCD Civic Centre. Following this,tenders were to be called.

The agency had increased the councillors’ funds from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1.55 crore this year. All 272 councillors were to get Rs 1.55 crore for carrying out development work in their areas,such as road construction and sanitation. Under this,Rs 50 lakh has been allotted for improvement of roads in every ward. The allocation for every ward under other heads are: sanitation services (Rs 25 lakh),maintenance works (Rs 75 lakh) and streetlighting (Rs 5 lakh).