5 councillors under-utilise ward development fund

Sandeep Rana
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, December 8

Another year is coming to an end but five councillors of the local Municipal Corporation (MC) have failed to utilise over 30 per cent of their ward development fund of two years.

BJP councillors Gurpreet Singh and Satish Kainth are the worst spenders. They have not utilised over 40 per cent of the funds in two years. Gurpreet has 46.68 per cent funds lying pending while Kainth is yet to spend 43.21 per cent of Rs 80 lakh, his two-year funds.

BJP’s Rajesh Kumar Gupta has 35.16 per cent funds yet to be utilised.

Devinder Singh Babla of the Congress and the leader of the opposition in the MC House has 31.5 6 per cent funds unused. BJP’s Heera Negi is yet to spend about 30 per cent of her ward development funds.

Each councillor gets Rs 40 lakh every year to spend on development works in their respective wards. With two years in the MC House, they had Rs 80 lakh at their disposal. However, they are lagging behind on spending.

Development works are either moving at a slow pace or not being undertaken at all in their wards.

These councillors have put the blame for under-utilisation of funds on the MC. “MC officials are not releasing the funds due to poor financial state of the civic body. I have already given my agendas. Thus, the remaining amount will also get utilised,” said Babla.

Gurpreet said, “During the first six months, the MC did not have money. Thus, only those who had already submitted their agendas could get funds.”

Top spenders

Four of the councillors not only managed to spend their entire ward development fund for two years but even took 10 per cent advance funds. BJP councillors Asha Kumar Jaswal, Ravi Kant Sharma, Bharat Kumar and Vinod Aggarwal have used their two-year funds of Rs 80 lakh and have taken Rs 4 lakh each as advance. “I undertook works like development of parks, open-air gyms, installing lights and constructing tracks in my ward,” said Ravi Kant.

How funds are utilised

A total of 26 councillors are elected for a five-year term in the MC and each of them gets Rs 40 lakh as ward development fund every year. Unlike other agendas, which go to the MC House for approval, councillors send their proposals to the Chief Engineer, who further allots work to officials. The unspent funds get carried forward to the next year and can be used in five years.