The city may have got the necessary push in its pursuit of the metro status by bagging the monorail, cyber parks and various other multi-crore development projects, but it seems that a major proposal for appointing an international consultancy to prepare the plan and aid the future development of the city has been put into cold storage.
Touted as a major proposal, the appointment of the consultancy was included in the budget of the City Corporation for the year 2012-13.
With just over three months left for the financial year to end, Corporation authorities admit that chances of putting the proposal into action are bleak.
However, Deputy Mayor P T Abdul Latheef is optimistic.He said the proposal was not dropped and they will moot the plan for appointing a consultancy with international standing.
“The appointment of a consultancy was proposed mainly with an eye on the future development of the city.Though the process got delayed, we have not dropped the proposal and are seriously conceiving the idea.The major task before we take a decision on the appointment is to fix the criteria for the same.
As the Corporation is trying to bring the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) scheme to the city and other major development projects are also in the offing, the service of a consultancy with high standards will definitely go a long way in formulating the new project ideas and their implementation,” he said.
Earlier, in the budget proposal, it was said that the city is all set for a giant leap in terms of development and hiring a consultancy to chart out the course of progress was vital.
It also pointed out that the modernisation of existing infrastructure facilities, the upcoming monorail and twotier road projects could not be single-handedly carried out by the local body.
The consultancy will play a key role in the timely implementation of the multi-crore infrastructure projects, while at the same time proposing new ideas for the comprehensive development of the city.
Meanwhile, Opposition councillors said that the delay in the implementation of the project showed the continuing laxity of the ruling front towards the city’s development.“There is nothing new in this and the consultancy project is not the only one remaining on paper.
To my knowledge, not a single project announced in this year’s budget has entered the implementation mode.It remains to be seen how much work will be carried out in the next three months’ time,” UDF councillor P Kishanchand said.