The Trinamul Congress civic board has promised to complete the remaining projects under the Kolkata Environment Improvement Project (KEIP) within 2012.
Mayor Sovan Chatterjee on Wednesday claimed that after meeting with the officials of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the prime lending agency of the Kolkata M
unicipal Corporation (KMC) has granted them the extension. “We would be submitting a proposal of Rs 2,500 crore project for the KEIP phase 2 to the ADB very soon,” the mayor said. “The projects like upgradation of drainage system, coming up with new pumping stations, restoring the existing pipelines, beautification of the parks and squares and other environment related works were taken up during the tenure of the previous Left Front civic board. However, due to various irregularities, the previous board failed to meet the deadline of completing the projects within the end of 2010 financial year,” Mr Chatterjee said.
A meeting would be held at New Delhi on Thursday also where the representatives of the ADB, Central government and the mayor would discuss about the penalty to be slapped by the lending agency for non-completion of the first phase work under the KEIP.
Another meeting would be held on Friday which would be attended by Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee and technocrat Sam Pitroda also to work out a blueprint for a facelift of Kolkata.