E-Paper
Left with ₹4 crore in coffers, Mohali MC staring at severe fund crunch
Each month, Mohali MC needs at least ₹10 crore to stay on track with maintenance works and ₹3 crore to pay its around 1,000 employees; mayor blames delay in payment of funds owed by GMADA and PSPCL for MC’s fiscal troubles
Awaiting crores owed by various government agencies, the Mohali municipal corporation is heading towards a major financial crunch with only ₹4.42 crore left in its coffers.
The figure is worrisome for the civic body, as, every month, it requires around ₹10 crore for maintenance works alone and another ₹3 crore to pay its around 1,000-strong staff. While salaries for August have been disbursed in September, MC is staring at the next month’s salary bill and the long list of development works pending.
The civic works pertain to maintenance of sewer lines, stormwater drains, water supply, solid waste management, street lights, toilet blocks, roads, footpaths and parks.
Mayor Amarjit Singh Sidhu attributed MC’s depleting balance primarily to delay in payments owed by Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) and Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL), which alone had piled up to around ₹227 crore.
Besides, various government agencies also owe MC ₹13 crore in property tax, with GMADA ( ₹6.5 crore) and police department ( ₹2.75 crore) being the biggest defaulters.
Sidhu said as per a 2020 agreement, GMADA had to foot 25% cost of any development work carried out by MC. “But it has failed to pay up for the works carried out in the past 10 months, leading to dues worth ₹213 crore. Similarly, PSPCL has to pay ₹14 crore owed as power octroi charges,” he said.
Apart from these, MC also relies on Punjab municipal funds, advertisement fee, excise duty, water and sewerage bills, rent and tehbazaari fee for income.
MC commissioner Navjot Kaur said they recently received ₹4 crore from the state government as part of the municipal funds, which will come in handy for a while. “We have already written to GMADA and PSPCL for the pending dues, which are urgently required for MC’s smooth functioning. We will hopefully get some funds from them by month end,” she said.
Deputy mayor Kuljit Singh Bedi said, “MC carries out development works solely, while GMADA continues to delay payment of its share of funds. It earns crores in form of penalties, building plan approvals and property auction, but still sits tight on releasing funds owed to MC.”
Now finding itself in dire straits, MC’s work was cut out at the beginning of the fiscal itself when the Punjab local bodies department imposed a cut of ₹25 crore in MC’s budget for 2022-23.
While MC had proposed a budget of ₹161 crore, the local bodies department had approved only ₹136 crore. As such, MC has been relying on contributions from GMADA and PSPCL for the city’s development works.
Even for 2021-22, the department had slashed MC’s budget by ₹31 crore. Against the proposed ₹148 crore, it had approved only ₹117 crore.
