Hyderabad: Citing discrepancies in double bedroom house construction, the state government has asked Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation to submit utilisation certificates (UC) before it releases the pending bills.
A utilisation certificate certifies that money already paid for a project has been used.
It has come to the notice of the government that the corporation is hand-in-glove with contractors in submitting bills without providing the UCs. The corporation recently submitted bills worth Rs 260 crore, of the pending Rs 500 crore.
According to highly placed sources in the corporation, the civic body’s engineering wing has submitted bills for completion of about 40,000 2BHK houses. The corporation has also started construction at 20 other locations and begun constructing another 30,000 houses. The work has not been progressing at a brisk pace, but the corporation has sent bills to the government which do not match the pace of the work. The state government has therefore told the corporation to submit utilisation certificates for all the 70,000 2BHK houses for which it has submitted bills.
A senior GHMC official says the state government gives Rs 7.2 lakh for each unit, when its cost is actually Rs 7.9 lakh.
The state government has asked the corporation to bear the infrastructure cost of Rs 70,000 for each dwelling unit. GHMC has explained that its financial situation is such that it cannot shoulder this burden, but it has received no reply from the state government.
An official said the corporation so far has submitted bills of Rs 7.9 lakh per dwelling unit and claimed Rs 2,320 crore so far out of total Rs 8,500. He said that the corporation has already submitted pending bills worth Rs 260 crore and after doing so the State Housing Department asked the corporation to submit utilisation certificates for 70,000 houses, which would be a herculean task because they will have to compile everything. However, the official said that the corporation has been submitting utilisation certificates on regular basis.
