Chandigarh MC officers to meet guv today: Policy matters, ₹200-crore grant on agenda
Chandigarh MC is grappling with a severe financial crunch forcing it to halt all development-related works across the city since May this year
Chandigarh-specific policy matters to strengthen their own revenue generation and immediate special grant of ₹200 crore are on the agenda list of municipal corporation (MC) officers as they will meet Punjab governor and UT administration Gulab Chand Kataria on Thursday to discuss the budgetary concerns.
At present, the civic body is grappling with a severe financial crunch forcing it to halt all development-related works across the city since May this year. For the MC, the financial crisis is so serious that it has even put the already long-pending road carpeting work on hold and uncertainty looms over release of salaries for the staff for the coming months.
“Besides demanding an immediate grant of ₹200 crore, our focus is on increasing our revenue from various sources. This includes arrears from property tax, water bills and MC’s advertisement policies,” said MC commissioner Amit Kumar, adding that officers are working on strategising solutions for MC’s fiscal turmoil.
The Chandigarh administration has earmarked ₹560 crore as grant-in-aid against the demand of ₹1,651.75 crore for the current financial year. So far, MC has already received ₹387 crore grant. Besides, MC had estimated to generate revenue worth ₹350 crore from its own sources in this financial year. But from April 1 to September 30, MC could generate only ₹173.25 crore.
In the meantime, most of the revenue was spent on clearing the salaries and wages of MC staff and of the ₹493 crore spent till September 30, ₹145 crore was spent on salaries and ₹147 crore were spent on wages of the staff. Only 59 crore was spent on capital works in the first six months of the fiscal year, MC stats revealed.
City mayor Kuldeep Kumar Dhalor, who will also be attending the meeting with the administrator, said, “The MC is facing a gap of at least ₹200 crore between this fiscal year’s revenue and expenditure estimates and hence, we will request the administrator to release immediate special grant to resume development works in the city. Also, no revenue-generating departments have been transferred to the civic body in recent times despite the recommendation of the commissions and hence, we will request the administrator to handover departments like registration and license authority (RLA) and electricity duty to MC so that it can be made self-sustaining in future.”
It is pertinent to mention that for the past two months, the mayor has been seeking an additional grant claiming that in the last 10 years, the expenditure of the MC has increased by 121% against a corresponding increase in grant-in-aid to the tune of 70%. Furthermore, with the implementation of the 7th Central Pay Commission, the wages of the contractual and daily wage staff have also been enhanced, he claimed.
Mayor calls house meet on Oct 29
A day after Dhalor suspended the special house meeting in just 30 minutes without any solutions for the ongoing fiscal turmoil, the mayor called a general house meeting on October 29. “Some policy matters need to be discussed urgently, including that of maintenance and operation of community and public toilets and new norms for door-to-door garbage collection,” said Dhalor.