Thiruvananthapuram: Thiruvananthapuram Corporation handed over Rs 1,04,22,751 to Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran at VJT Hall here on Tuesday. Of this, Rs 1 crore has been the Corporation's contribution according to a press release.
The Corporation had conducted a fund collection drive at 11 counters, however the response to this has been lukewarm according to officials. From these counters, only about Rs 1.6 lakh was collected, they say. Even before the amount was counted, they were not expecting it to cross Rs 3 lakh, as very few people actually turned up.
They say that they did not get much time to mobilise more public to these counters. They did have mike announcements near the counters. The collection had started on Saturday. It was supposed to go on for three days, however they had to shut the counters early because of the hartal on Monday. This too might have been a reason for the collection being so less, they say.
There was an event to attract some attention to the counter near Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple. The temple goers offered some money. At all counters there were cash collection boxes, as well as e-pos machines should someone bring debit and credit cards. The counter where maximum people turned up was at Kazhakkoottam, Mayor's ward. So far, Rs 1.34 crores have been contributed to CMDRF through Thiruvananthapuram Corporation.
