Jammu, December 9
Ministerial colleagues of Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and several legislators are unhappy over the poll schedule for the civic
bodies, including the Srinagar and Jammu municipal corporations,
announced by the Chief Electoral Officer recently.
The poll process for the two corporations and the local bodies is to begin from February 1.
A couple of ministers and MLAs contacted by The Tribune in the past two days said that they would persuade the Chief Minister to postpone the poll process till March-end.
The main reason for their chagrin is that the annual budget allocations for various government departments have not been finalised yet and, consequently, funds, as per commitment, have not been released. The result, they said, was that various development schemes could not take off.
A Minister of State said “after the poll schedule is announced, the government agencies cannot carry out building of roads, renovating sewage system, and improving drinking water supply lines.”
He said “during the 2002 Assembly poll, we had promised the electorate better roads, drains, drinking water supply and other civic amenities. We have been able to do much during the past one year. Our hope of improving the lot of the people through the implementation of these schemes rested on the current year’s budget allocations.”
The Minister said “we will be handicapped when under the code of conduct no new scheme can be implemented.”
Another legislator explained that several important departments, including the PWD, Public Health, civic bodies and panchayat committees had not received sufficient
funds, as provided in the budget estimates, with the result that many development schemes have remained on paper.
In reply to a question, he and others said that whatever development work was being done was the outcome of interim or ad hoc decisions.
The Minister said “we have decided to approach the Chief Minister with the request that the civic poll be deferred till the end of March and, in the meantime, allotted funds be released to the agencies connected with the development works.”
A couple of ministers said the delay on the part of the Centre to release funds on time could affect the pace of development works. If the funds were released at the fag end of the current financial year, the government may be forced to divert money, which remained unspent during the current year, to some power projects.
