Pledges unfulfilled

KOCHI: In its earlier budget, the civic body had promised the city more than one hundred projects, out of which only 39 were partially completed or intitated so far. Out of the 39 projects, 21 were related to infrastructure.

The rest of the projects remain unfulfilled pledges and broken promises.

Rehabilitation

The Kochi Corporation had evicted a total of 36 families along the Perandoor canal in 2007. The families that were evicted were provided temporary accommodation in the building owned by the corporation near North Railway station.

Allocations were made in last two budgets for rehabilitating these families at Mundamvely. But so far only 12 families were provided with housing facilities.

The explanation given by the civic body in this regard is that the housing scheme for these segments was formulated in 2004 and rates were estimated according to the then prevailing rates. The cost of construction, including that of materials, has gone up considerably in the past five years. According to the revised estimate, around Rs 3.4 lakh would be required for constructing each housing unit.

With the local body elections to be held later this year, the civic body will be keen to include the construction of houses at Mundamvely in this years budget.