The Hindu 02.04.2013
Health, sanitation take a back seat in VMC budget
No provision for development of scientific dumping yards.
Emphasis has been laid on two major aspects — public health &
sanitation and engineering, in the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation
budget, declared District Collector and VMC Special Officer Buddha
Prakash M. Jyothi.
A cursory glance at the allocations in the
budget gives an impression that there is a gross mismatch between claim
and reality. Totally Rs.92.49 crore is earmarked for public health wing,
veterinary, entomologist/biologist, vehicle depot etc. A major chunk of
it goes towards salaries and wages. The CMEY and DWCUA members claim a
share of Rs.24.53 crore, while wages of other staff including contract
employees is more than Rs.43 crore.
There is no provision for
development of new dumping yards which are need of the hour. The
existing dumping yards in the city have exhausted and the Corporation
has to spend crores of rupees to develop scientific yards even if the
Government provides land free of cost. The VMC has earmarked Rs.60 lakh
for maintenance of dumping yards and Rs.5.50 crore for fuel to run VMC
vehicles.
The repairs of vehicles and dumper bins are estimated to cost Rs.60 lakh.
There
is hardly any emphasis on malaria eradication and mosquito menace in
the city. Close to only Rs.3 crore has been earmarked under these heads.
The corporation proposes to spend Rs.19 lakh on malaria eradication and
Rs.50 lakh on purchase of chemicals. It plans to purchase mosquito nets
valued at Rs.2 crore. Expenditure per head on eradicating mosquito
menace gets reduced to a mere Rs.29 per head in a year.
Purchase
of medicines for panchakarma, maintenance of hospitals, health programme
etc. amounts close to Rs.2 crore only. Cost of the anti-rabies vaccines
and control of stray animals, which are rocking the city, is estimated
at just Rs.15 lakh. The less one speaks about testing of food samples
the better. The VMC has not earmarked any amount for testing the food
samples.
It made a provision of Rs.5 lakh in 2012-13 budget estimates, but in the revised budget there is no mention of it at all.