Chandigarh, Jul 22 (IANS): To accelerate implementation of projects, the Punjab government has decided to give the mayors of 10 municipal corporations more powers.

Local Government Minister Brahm Mohindra said, here on Monday, it had been brought to his notice that work on some crucial projects had stopped for want of approvals from the different government organisations.

The procedural defects had caused unaccounted damage to the projects, Mohindra said and added, to remove bottlenecks, the government had decided to allow more powers to mayors of 10 municipal corporations to enable them to complete the projects in stipulated time.

The minister said he had also asked A. Venu Prasad, Local Government Department Secretary, to rationalise the categories of subjects to be decided at state or corporation level.

He said the state would soon introduce modified one-time settlement policy for illegal buildings. Under the earlier policy, only 1,018 online and 138 offline applications were received till July 21.