Krishna district Collector and Vijayawada Municipal Corporation Special
Officer Buddha Prakash M. Jyothi conducting the VMC budget meeting in
Vijayawada on Thursday. Municipal Commissioner G. S. Panda Das looks
on.— Photo: Ch.Vijaya Bhaskar.

While the total outlay is Rs.1,230 crore, the expenditure is pegged at Rs.1,061 crore.

The cash-strapped Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC)
presented an ‘optimistic budget’ with a surplus of Rs.169 crore for the
fiscal 2013-14. While the total outlay is Rs.1,230 crore, the
expenditure is pegged at Rs.1061 crore.

The
corporation is all set to take a loan of Rs.75 crore from the Hudco. A
loan of Rs.57 crore from the Housing Corporation is another major source
of income for the corporation this year. The VMC, as reported in these
columns, did not make any mention of revision in water charges in the
budget.

The proposal to float bonds worth Rs.250
crore also did not find a place in the budget. The corporation, to
augment its revenue, has chalked out plans to adopt revenue models to
generate income from sports complexes.

The parks will be developed and maintained in private public partnership (PPP) model hereafter.

The corporation authorities also have plans to rationalise the revenues through advertisement tax.

The packages such as posh areas-Bandar and Eluru Roads — will be devised and auctioned for better revenues.

Major breather

The advertisement tax collection, however, will be in the hands of private agencies as usual.

The plans are afoot to improve revenues through the shopping complexes.

The corporation will construct first and second floors in the complexes through good will collected.

The major breather for the corporation is professional tax collection.

The VMC will directly collect the professional tax from this year.

The demand is expected to be in the range of Rs. 17 crore to Rs.20 crore.

The VMC’s efficiency in tax collection hovered between 60 percent and 75 percent.

The
corporation is planning to increase its tax collection by Rs. 15 crore
to Rs. 20 crore this year. A GIS technology will be adopted in
identifying the grey areas in property tax and vacant land tax
collection.