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Financial Management

Corporation may double spending on health

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The New Indian Express 02.02.2010

Corporation may double spending on health


CHENNAI: Keeping its priorities on target year after year, the oldest civic body in the country, Chennai Corporation, is all set to table another budget sans any new taxes, focussing mainly on health and education sectors.

According to sources, the annual budget for 2010-11, likely to be tabled during the third week of March, is expected to double allocations in the education and health segments to maintain momentum before the Assembly elections due in May 2011.

In last year’s budget, Rs 5 crore was allocated for education development and Rs 1 crore for maintaining health priorities.

Besides, allocation in the infrastructure sector is likely to stay around Rs 100 crore this year. The allocation for the sector stood at Rs 175 crore last year and the high allocation according to officials was due to construction of several cement roads in North Chennai.

Though the proposed budget is likely to be without any new attractive schemes due to the corporation’s burgeoning day-to-day expenditure, the civic body may announce its plan to build a modern communicable diseases hospital for south Chennai to cater to lakhs of people now dependent on the only CDH located in Tondiarpet.

The proposed facility would come up at suburban Madambakkam where the civic body has a vast stretch of land.

Since the Assembly elections are due in May 2011, the civic body’s new budget is unlikely to introduce any new tax or enhance the existing property tax structure in the next financial year.

According to sources, the civic body’s property tax collection target for 2009-10 is very much achievable.

Till January, its Revenue Department had collected Rs 275 crore and by March-end, they hope to cross the target of Rs 350 crore.

While the Corporation’s revenue is increasing over the years, senior officials say that it has reached the saturation and the civic body’s increased expenditure would not allow them to divest funds for more developmental schemes.

Last Updated on Tuesday, 02 February 2010 11:00
 

Local body spent Rs 1 lakh on soap

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Deccan Chronicle 25.01.2010

Local body spent Rs 1 lakh on soap

January 25th, 2010
By Our Correspondent

Jan. 24: The Injambakkam local body has spent Rs 1,01,521 for purchasing soap and oil between 2007 and 2009. This startling figure was revealed in a response to an RTI petition regarding expenditure borne the Injambakkam panchayat over the last four years.

The long list of expenses furnished by the Injambakkam panchayat, a copy of which is available with this newspaper, reads more like ‘Ripley’s Believe it or Not’ and has left the residents who had sought the expenses’ list nonplussed.

The panchayat officials also claimed that they had spent over Rs 2,00,600 for renting cows over the last four years. Members of the Rajan Nagar and Selva Nagar Welfare Association wonder what was the purpose of spending over Rs 2 lakh for renting cows in a posh locality where real estate prices have sky rocketed over the recent years.

“This is clearly indicative of the mismanagement that has taken place in handling funds in the panchayat. If the money spent by the panchayat on various amenities like road repair and fixing streetlights are true, then residents here should have no problems. But, we are some of the most neglected lot,” say locals.
According to the expenditure list, the local body has spent Rs 3,00,17,612 for road repair and Rs 41,22,110 repairing and maintaining streetlights between 2005 and 2009. “If the money was actually spent on repairing roads and street lights, all our commuting woes would have ended,” said Mr Pon. Thangavelu, secretary of the Rajan Nagar and Selva Nagar Welfare Association.

According to the officials, Injambakkam has 27 kilometers of roads and over 900 streetlights and 322 sodium vapour lamps.

 

Panel to study finance position

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Panel to study finance position

December 3rd, 2009
By Our Correspondent

Dec. 2: The state government on Wednesday constituted the Fourth Finance Commission to review the financial position of the rural and urban local bodies and to make appropriate recommendations to the government.

Headed by senior IAS officer K Phanindra Reddy and comprising five members, the commission would study the distribution of the net proceeds of taxes, duties, tolls and fees leviable by the government and village panchayats, panchayat union councils, district panchayats, town panchayats, municipalities and corporations and also the same, which may be divided between them and the allocation of the respective shares of the proceeds.

According to an official release here the commission would assess the financial position of local bodies as on March 31, 2010 and submit its report by May 31, 2011, covering a period of five years, commencing on April 1, 2012.

It would determine the taxes, duties, tolls and fees which may be assigned to or appropriated by the local bodies and study the grants-in-aid to the said local bodies from the consolidated fund of the state.

It would suggest measures needed to improve the financial position of the local bodies and also possible new avenues for tapping resources, keeping in mind the tax structure in other states.

 


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