HYDERABAD: Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad's ugly underbelly - slums - was exposed on Tuesday when corporators belonging to all political parties took officials to task for not spending allocated funds for slum development in the last few years.

Members asked Mayor T. Krishna Reddy and Commissioner Sanjay Jaju to take action against officials responsible for ignoring works in slums and for tardy progress in most cases at the general body meeting, which met for an unprecedented second day. Mr. Jaju's reasoning that there was scope for improvement but slums here were in a far better shape when compared to other cities did not cut much ice with corporators. Staff shortage reason cited did not convince them either.

Corporators - P. Narayanaswamy (Bagh Amberpet), G.R. Linga Murthy (Begumpet), M. Kalavati (Padmaraonagar) and T. Indira (Kavadiguda) - Deputy Mayor G. Subash Chanderji and others claimed that not a single work in slums was taken up despite submission of proposals.

Statistics

As per the figures submitted, less than Rs. 5 crores was spent in 2004-05 of the budgetary allocation of Rs. 45 crores and only Rs. 9.5 crores of Rs. 78 crores was spent in 2005-06. Even if general budget allocations were included, the capital expenditure on slums was less than 50 per cent of funds earmarked.

Little or no money was spent on health centres, hospital equipment, sewerage, rainwater harvesting, school buildings, parks, etc.

At one stage, women corporators brought proceedings to a standstill seeking resumption of revolving funds to self-help groups since banks were refusing loans.

"Where are the funds being diverted? Why can't we give revolving fund from our budget," wondered corporators.

Additional Commissioner (Works) Harshvardhan revealed that the Government stopped giving grant for SHGs revolving fund, 25 paisa interest loans were yet to reach urban areas as also Indiramma scheme.

Self-employment schemes

Mr. Jaju claimed basic amenities in slums were better than what was being projected and said the expenditure on slums doubled. He asked corporators to identify community spaces within a month for clearing self-employment projects on priority.

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