Slums suffer as Kudumbashree drags

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kudumbashree has inspired a thrift revolution among poor women in the state but its shoddy supervision of Basic Services to Urban Poor (BSUP) project has led to the poor implementation of development projects in the slums of the capital city. Kudumbashree’s apathy has led to low fund utilisation and less than optimum gains for beneficiaries.

A top Urban Affairs Department official said that no system existed in the Corporation to ensure that BSUP projects were effectively implemented in the stipulated time. Kudumbashree, which was the nodal agency of the project, did not have a control mechanism in place to monitor financial flows vis a vis physical performance.

In fact, Mahindra Consulting Engineers Limited, Chennai, was appointed as a Third Party Inspection and Monitoring Agency (TPIMA) by Kudumbashree to review and monitor the performance of the BSUP projects during pre-construction stage, construction stage, commissioning, trial run and testing stage and post construction stage.

The inputs from the agency were meant to enable the Programme Monitoring and Evaluation System to report on the performance of the project implementation. The official said that though TPIMA had inspected the projects and submitted their suggestions to the nodal agency, it did not serve any purpose. Reason: None of the reports were forwarded to the Corporation.

The payment of '3.33 lakh made to TPIMA remained largely unfruitful. As per the funding pattern of the scheme, 25 per cent of the committed central share relating to the project would be released to the State as first instalment on approval of the project.

On receipt of the central fund, the State has to release the matching fund. The balance assistance would be released by the Centre in three instalments on receipt of the utilisation certificate. The delay in providing utilisation certificates had inordinately delayed transfer of central funds

It has also been found that the Corporation, knowing that there was not much supervision, had released lesser amount of assistance than what was originally prescribed. This has resulted in a short payment of over Rs one crore for 3,865 beneficiaries in the capital’s slums.