Chandigarh municipal corporation to disburse pending payments to contractors

CHANDIGARH: The proposed projects of the Chandigarh municipal corporation failed to take off due to the election code of conduct imposed during elections and scarcity of funds with the civic body. These projects include re-carpeting of roads, waste segregation, smart paid parking, re-tendering of city's only night food street, construction of community centres are the key projects which the MC has either started or going to start.
Though, the civic body has received dedicated funds for the re-carpeting of roads, the work was stalled due to the imposition of the election code of conduct during Lok Sabha elections. However, the work has now started on the internal roads of some sectors. Moreover, the construction work of the community centres has also been initiated by the MC. Though, the construction work of the community centres is being done by the engineering department of the Chandigarh administration, but these centres belong to the MC and were given to the UT to construct only due to scarcity of funds. After the construction, the UT will handover the community centres to the Chandigarh municipal corporation.
Besides that the exercise has also started to resume the smart paid parking in the city. Though, the officials have prepared a detailed plan in this regard by including more parking lots as paid parking and even raised the matter in the last general House meeting, but the members of the general House have constituted a committee to discuss the issue in detail. Similarly, the paper works has been completed to re-start the night food street and tender of the same will soon be advertised.
The payment to the contractors also remained a key issue, since the MC was suffering from financial crunch. The pending payments amount to Rs 10 to 12 crore and therefore, contractors had stopped the works midway. Now, since the MC has received the first installment of grant-in-aid from the Chandigarh administration, the engineering department is preparing the details of payment, which will be disbursed to the contractors very soon.