Disgruntled Opposition Congress Members Walk Out of Meeting

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangalore, Nov 10: The opposition congress members of the Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat walked out in the midst of its monthly meeting on Tuesday saying that the Zilla Panchayat was ignoring major issues. 

During the meeting, the members of the opposition raised the issue of releasing funds to the ZPs for roads and bridges. When Santhosh Bhandari, the president of the Zilla Panchayat, ignored the issue, the opposition members left the meeting, which continued without them. These members later organized a press conference in their office. 

During the press conference, they alleged that most of the ZP projects are incomplete because the state government’s failure to release funds. 

The state government, the opposition alleged, failed to submit a certificate of fund utilization confirming that the funds released by 12th Finance Commission Grants last year have been used up. Owing to non submission of this certificate, the center has not yet sanctioned the sum of Rs 9.18 crores, which it was supposed to release under the 12th Finance Commission Grants to Karnataka ZPs this year. The state government has, therefore, requested the ZP’s to keep the schemes under roads and bridges pending. 

The state government has also not released the promised 3.76 crore to the ZPs for roads and bridges in 2008-09. Instead, these funds were sanctioned to legislators in DK for development work. This year, a sum of Rs 3.8 crores, supposed to have been sanctioned to ZPs, has been released to legislators once again.

The members of the congress are planning to stage a protest against this and demand justice for the Zilla Panchayats of DK. 

Members of the congress Chandrashekar Kamath, F Ummar Farooq, K K Shaul, Victoria D’Cunha, Emilda Pinto, A C Bhandari, P Dharanendra Kumar, G Sadananda Malli, Krishna Ameen, and M Anitha Hemanath Shetty were present at the press conference.