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Ludhiana MC passes ₹1,062-cr budget
The General House of the MC, which will complete its term on March 25, lasted only a little over 40 minutes and was held at the Zone A office of the civic body in Ludhiana
The last General House meeting of the municipal corporation on Friday approved a budget of ₹1062.66 crore for the fiscal year 2023-24, an over ₹28 crore hike from the previous year.
The General House of the MC, which will complete its term on March 25, lasted only a little over 40 minutes and was held at the Zone A office of the civic body. The first half of the session remained dominated by issues raised by the councillors, while the budget was presented, discussed and passed in the last 15 minutes. The budget will now be sent to the Punjab government for approval.
Mayor Balkar Singh Sandhu had proposed a budget of ₹1043.66 crore which was sought by the councillors of the opposition parties. The expenditure on the road infrastructure was raised by ₹ 8 crores. Besides this, the estimated income targets under the property tax was raised by ₹5 crores, building tax was hiked by ₹3 crores, while the budget for licence fees was raised by ₹1 crore.
The mayor clarified that the pending dues from the electricity department is to be recovered and would be part of the income. He said that no new tax has been introduced.
Senior deputy mayor Sham Sunder Malhotra protested against the reduction in income from the cow cess, the income target under the same was hence raised by ₹10 crore.
Municipal commissioner, Shena Aggarwal and AAP MLAs from the city Gurpreet Gogi from Ludhiana West, Madan Lal Bagga from Ludhiana North, Kulwant Sidhu from Atam Nagar, and Gurpreet Gogi from Ludhiana West were also present on the occasion.
It is the second budget of the MC after the Aam Aadmi Party government came to power in the state. The current house has Congress in the majority and has members from different parties, including Bharatiya Janata Party, Lok Insaf Party, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
As the announcement regarding the councillor’s elections can come anytime soon, they exchanged barbs over credit for various developmental projects in their respective wards.
Points of contest
As the house opened for discussion, Harbhajan Singh Dang of SAD raised the issue of pending development projects.
“The projects have been deliberately stalled and contractors have been directed not to start the work. In my ward, alone five projects are pending since December 2021,” he said.
He added, “Projects which have been devised and approved under the councillor’s quota will be inaugurated by the MLAs of the current dispensation to woo the voters.”
Gurpreet Gogi of Congress said that the city’s first plastic road which was started in his ward and will raise the city’s ranking in the Swachh Bharat rankings is still pending.
Following the assurance by AAP MLAs that all projects will be jointly inaugurated, the councillors took back their protests.
State’s largest MC ‘impoverished’
Even as the MC claimed record collections from various taxes, the issue of the poor financial condition of the state’s largest MC was also highlighted. Members were united in their concern that unless the state government comes to the rescue, it will get hard to pay the contractors and salaries.
Addressing the commissioner, the leader of the opposition in the house Jaspal Singh Giaspura said that the MC owes ₹150 crore towards the contractors. “If the situation continues, it will become hard for the MC to even pay salaries to the staff,” he said.
MLA from AAP Gurpreet Gogi said that the local bodies ministry of the Punjab Government will release a grant of ₹150 to ₹200 crore, apart from GST, to ease the financial condition of the MC.
₹16 crore have been set aside for capital works, including desilting and purchase of machinery.
Highlights
Congress councillor Baljinder Bunty raised objection over MC’s recent announcement to demolish sans warning the buildings being constructed without the civic body’s approval.
Gurdeep Neetu, who became a councillor on the Congress ticket and joined BJP this month, said that the income targets ₹5 crore under the tehbazari (MC charges for vends) were very low given the size of the city to which the mayor replied that the problem of traffic congestion in the city due to illegal vends is already severe and more vends will add to the residents’ misery.
The regularisation of over 400 contractual employees of the MC over the age of 42 was also discussed, to which the ruling party MLAs said that an announcement regarding the same will be made by the government soon.
