Cuttack, Dec. 30: The issue of alleged embezzlement of relief materials meant for Phailin victims dominated proceedings at the municipal corporation’s last council meeting of that was held here today.

In an attempt to refurbish their image owing to the embarrassment on the issue ahead of the municipal election slated for February next year, the councillors held the officials in charge of the relief materials responsible for the incident.

The councillors, cutting across party lines, condemned the way in which the entire issue was politicised and hyped.

“There was no loot of relief materials. The councillors were asked by the corporation officials to distribute the items among the beneficiaries in their respective wards as free kitchen could not be made functional during the cyclone that hit the state on October 12,” said Congress councillor of ward No. 31 Pabitra Bhuyan.

A vigilance probe is on into the alleged misappropriation of cyclone relief materials in the city. So far the anti-corruption wing has registered cases against four civic officials — former commissioner Nihar Ranjan Mohapatra, deputy commissioner J.N. Kujur, recovery officer Bijay Das and deputy secretary Nirmal Nayak.

BJD councillor of ward No. 53 Koushik Jena also admitted that there was negligence on part of the Cuttack Municipal Corporation officials for which the issue had snowballed into a controversy.

“The councillors had no fault. All the relief materials were issued by the officials after doing the necessary paper work,” said Jena adding that the councillors had also submitted a list of beneficiaries along with their signatures to the vigilance department.

Apart from the alleged misappropriation of relief materials, a discussion on various welfare projects undertaken by the municipal corporation in the last five years was also held today.

“A lot of developmental works were carried out by the civic body,” said Durga Sahoo, councillor of ward No. 20.

Mayor Saumendra Ghose appreciated the work of the councillors and other officials at the meeting. “We have been successful in carrying out a lot of developmental work in the past five years which was possible due to the cooperation of the councillors and officials,” said Ghose, adding that adequate steps would be taken to complete various pending projects including an art gallery, town hall renovation and the Debi gada portal, the foundation stone of which was laid by chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Saturday.