The Hindu 07.06.2012
Broke BBMP all set to present ‘surplus’ budget?
Think tank:The BBMP’s Standing Committee for Taxation and Finance
committee has been discussing ways to bring in more properties under the
tax net.— file Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy
The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike’s (BBMP) Standing
Committee for Taxation and Finance has begun budget preparations in
earnest. Committee chairperson K.A. Munendra Kumar claims that efforts
were on to ensure that the 2012-13 budget is presented as soon as
possible.
Revenue sources
The
committee has been meeting heads of various departments to review the
requirements and finalise the budget. The review meetings are likely to
end this week. On Wednesday, the committee, along with Mayor D.
Venkatesh Murthy, Deputy Mayor L. Srinivas and Ruling Party Leader N.
Nagaraju, reviewed the revenue sources.
According to
highly-placed sources, the meeting discussed various revenue sources
including property tax, optic fibre cables, advertisement tax and
betterment charges. The meeting discussed ways to bring in more
properties under the tax net. Yediyur councillor N.R. Ramesh recently
raised this issue in the BBMP council.
Sources said
that some welfare programmes, the benefits of which had not been availed
of, would be scrapped. “Various schemes and programmes were introduced
in the previous budgets. Some schemes have not been utilised at all.
These have been identified and will be scrapped.”
‘Bogus budgets’
Meanwhile, the budget outlay this year will be more than that of 2011-12.
Sources
said the committee will present a surplus and not a deficit budget.
Both the 2010-11 and 2011-12 budgets had been slammed by the Opposition
parties, who had labelled them as “bogus” budgets.
The
BBMP had presented a gargantuan budget of Rs. 8,446 crore in 2010-11
and followed it up with a Rs. 9,315 crore budget in 2011-12.
Though Mr. Murthy had earlier claimed that a “realistic” budget would be presented, it seems unlikely, sources added.