As Deputy Mayor C.P. Musafir Ahmed is getting ready to present the annual Budget for the year 2023-24 of the Kozhikode Corporation on Monday, the Opposition parties have mooted a practical Budget in place of the allegedly impractical declarations of the previous years.
“There is a need to focus on basic necessities such as waste management and paperless offices. It is shameful that the public has to run from pillar to post for every necessity even when the Corporation is celebrating its diamond jubilee. Even a petition under the Right to Information Act does not get a proper answer,” said Navya Haridas, BJP council party leader of the Corporation.
Opposition leader K.C. Shobhita of the Congress said that the administrative panel refrains from the usual tall claims and come up with a ‘true’ Budget focusing on the real and immediate needs of the public. “Parking plazas have reached nowhere near completion. Bus stands need to be renovated and so do the parks and toilets. Declarations are not enough,” she said.
Ms. Shobhita said that despite Corporation office modernisation going on for years, it is yet not friendly for the differently abled. “If they can do so much, why not a ramp on every exit?,” she questioned. She also demanded restrooms for women employees.
Ms. Haridas said that the civic body has not been able to deliver even 20% of the declarations in its previous Budget. “The Budget claimed that the Corporation office will be corruption-free once the ‘Suvega’ software was installed. Incidentally, the software was used for one of the biggest scams in the history of the civic body,” she said.
The maximum number of pages in previous year’s Budget was dedicated to ‘Azhaku’, the hygiene protocol of the Corporation. However, waste management still remains the biggest mystery in the city, and the civic body is helpless, Ms. Haridas added.
She said that most of last years’ Budget was a repetition from previous years though the projects were given fancy names and hoped that they would not be repeated again.
