Urban News

Opposition Congress leader in the council M Nagaraj alleged that there were many discrepancies in the budget and that it lacked clarity on issues like revenue mobilisation.

He also wondered what was the need to allocate `5 crore for the dog menace.

"Do you think there are 1,000 dogs in each ward," he asked the Mayor S K Nataraj.

He was also critical of not allocating funds for development in wards represented by opposition corporators.

Nagaraj alleged that there was no understanding between the Mayor and BBMP Commissioner Siddaiah.

"The commissioner has put brakes on works worth thousands of crores and issued showcause notice to 84 engineers," he said.

He also took exception to not giving credit in budgetmaking to opposition Lok Sabha members including Union Law Minister M Veerappa Moily and former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy who represent Chikkaballapur and Bangalore rural respectively, and fall under the BBMP territorial limits.

''You have given credit only to the ruling party MPs and MLAs while leaving out the contributions of opposition members,'' Nagaraj alleged.

Ruling party leader Katte Satyanarayana, however, defended the budget as "progressvie" and added that Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa had promised a special grant for the BBMP through which development works would be taken up.

He also said that schemes to collect taxes at the doorstep had been initiated on the lines of bills collected by the Bescom and BWSSB to improve revenue generation.

Besides this, the BBMP would mobilise additional revenue by plugging leakages in advertisement revenue and giving fresh leases of its properties at market rates.