To get grants, corporations must finish projects on time

Municipal corporations and municipal councils will be able to get grants from the state government only if they utilise funds for specific schemes in a time-bound manner. The quality of work will also be checked through a third-party audit.

Replying to a debate on the urban development department’s budgetary allocations, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis agreed that many a time, government grants were misused by municipal corporations and municipal councils. Mr Fadnavis said that the urban development department allocated funds but there was no control over supervision of how the funds were used.

“We have decided to apply four parameters to corporations and councils to give them government grants. Works that will be completed have to maintain quality. Quality control will be seriously checked. The audit will be conducted by a third party and the outcome evaluation of the project or work will be checked. The last parameter will be that the project be completed within the stipulated timeframe,” said Mr Fadnavis.

He further said that if the project was completed within the expected time, contractors would be given cash incentives however if they failed to complete the project within the contract period, they would be punished.

Earlier, the urban development department focused on major cities including Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Aurangabad and Nashik among others. However, small cities were ignored and hence, they did not get sufficient funds for sustainable development.

The chief minister said that this time, they had focused on small cities and, hence, made sufficient allocation for such cities.