E-Paper
Covid impact: Mohali MC’s losses mount to ₹13 crore in five months
The Punjab local bodies department had already imposed a cut of Rs 141 crore in its budget for 2020-21 earlier this year.
Already reeling due to a deficit budget, the fund-starved Mohali municipal corporation has suffered losses to the tune of Rs 13 crore in the past five months due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In a major setback to MC, the Punjab local bodies department had imposed a cut of Rs 141 crore in its budget for 2020-21 earlier this year. Against the proposal of Rs 268 crore, which the civic body forwarded in February, the local bodies department had approved only Rs 127 crore.
Every month, Mohali MC spends Rs 5 crore on paying salaries, power bills, fuel charges and maintaining city’s sanitation.
With the pandemic affecting its income, the civic body is now left with only Rs 15 crore to meet its expenses for the remainder of the financial year.
Revenue curtailed
While it expected to earn Rs 10 crore in lieu of octroi, a duty levied on various goods entering Mohali, the civic body got just Rs 5 crore from the state government.
A major blow came in the form of unipole advertisers’ refusal to pay the Rs 5-crore fee for five months. They instead wrote to the civic body seeking a waiver, citing no revenue earned.
MC has referred the case to the local bodies department for approval. There are 102 unipoles set up by six companies in the city.
Besides, neither the Rs 25-lakh rent nor the tehbazaari fee (licence to squat and sell goods in a particular location) that generally amounts to Rs 5 lakh per month has been collected by MC for the past five months.
No duties, challans collected
Other losses incurred include additional excise duty of Rs 1 crore; fee of around Rs 15 lakh from road cuts, which is required to lay sewer and water pipes; challan fee of polythene, which is around Rs 8 lakh; and building application fee, which comes to around Rs 25 lakh for five months.
On account of property tax, residents have so far paid just Rs 7 crore against an estimated Rs 25 crore, and water bill payments come to around Rs 8 lakh instead of Rs 25 lakh.
MC commissioner Kamal Kishore Garg said, “It is a nationwide crisis and Mohali MC has also suffered a huge loss. We got some funds on account of octroi, but suffered a major loss in terms of advertisement fee, which is around Rs 5 crore. Public dealing has begun, so we are hopeful of some recovery.”
200 tenders await allotment
Meanwhile, more than 200 tenders of development works worth Rs 30 crore have not been allotted for the past one year.
These projects pertain to development of parks, laying of paver blocks and footpaths, re-carpeting of roads and installing outdoor gyms.
