Kochi’s district planning committee has approved revisions to the 2026–27 annual plans of 31 local bodies and cleared health grant projects submitted by nine local bodies, while directing administrations to speed up fund utilisation and strengthen sanitation coordination across the district.
The decisions were taken at a meeting chaired by district planning committee chairperson K G Radhakrishnan on Friday, according to the Times of India. Radhakrishnan instructed local self-governing institutions that were lagging in plan spending to take urgent steps to utilise their allocated funds.
Local administrators and district-level officials were asked to oversee the spending process. The committee chairperson also directed district-level officials to attend district planning committee meetings without fail, placing responsibility for implementation oversight on both local and district-level administrations.
The approval of the revised annual plans covers 31 local bodies in the district. The meeting also cleared health grant projects submitted by nine local bodies. The source report did not specify the project-wise value of the grants or the nature and location of the approved health works.
The committee’s decisions also form part of the state government’s ‘Nirmalam Puthuyuga Suchithwa Keralam’ sanitation campaign. Radhakrishnan instructed all local bodies to create coordination committees by Wednesday and ward-level committees by October 17 to intensify sanitation activities.
The committee structure is intended to extend the sanitation campaign from the local-body level to individual wards. However, the report did not provide details of the committees’ membership, funding, operational responsibilities or monitoring system.
A one-day workshop is scheduled for October 24 under the leadership of the district planning committee. Local chairpersons, officials and elected representatives will take part in the workshop, which will introduce timely updates to the planning guidelines of the 15th Five-Year Plan.
The workshop will also focus on helping local bodies carry out their responsibilities with greater clarity. The committee’s instructions therefore combine immediate administrative action on plan spending with a broader effort to align local planning and sanitation work with updated guidelines.
The next scheduled milestones are the formation of local-body coordination committees by Wednesday, the creation of ward-level committees by October 17 and the district planning committee-led workshop on October 24.
