Hundreds of civil construction projects of Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) worth around Rs 150 crore have been affected due to the decision of the state government to not release any advance or sanctioned fund for any of the projects till further orders.

The Hemant Soren government has said that the financial condition of Jharkhand was so poor that it was necessary to assess viability of all projects.

Hemant on Monday will review different departments such as HRD (education), excise and prohibition, SC/ST and OBC development, transport, minority welfare, registration, women and child development, health, labour and employment, agriculture, water resources, water and sanitation, building construction, IT and e-governance.

The uncertainty over funds will be cleared only once chief minister Hemant Soren reviews different projects of the departments. But much will depend upon the state annual budget too.

Though local urban bodies are independent bodies, payments are done through the state treasury under control of the government.

Officials in the RMC are a worried lot.

“We are in a fix over the funds freeze. Tenders already finalised have been kept on hold. Ongoing projects are on pause mode as we can’t pay contractors. We can’t put slabs on open drains because of the order. We can’t even spend a single rupee on civil construction work,” said a top source in the RMC.

He cited some instances. “Construction of the vegetable market at Nagababa Khatal worth Rs 10 crore has stopped. So has work at the Distillery Talab,” he said.

A contractor said that as his pending bill had not been cleared, he asked his labourers to go home. “I am a small contractor. How can I work if I don’t get money?”

A resident of Vidyapatinagar, which is always full of slush thanks to bad drainage, said he was not amused.

“Is the Jharkhand government too poor to even build drains?”, he asked.