Urban News

However, some believe the commitment will not be fulfilled. According to them, earlier also the government had not kept its promise of giving incremental grant in lieu of octroi that was taken off the civic revenue list on November 14, 2007.

The civic body is hopeful of getting the promised 15 per cent incremental growth in the grant in lieu of octroi. The expectation is based on its past performance of recording 19 per cent growth in income from octroi in 2006-07 over the preceding year. It is another thing that the AMC has not got the promised 15 per cent increase in the grant in the last three years.

Officials said they may find the government grant “sufficient” to meet the project finance requirement among other things like “slight delay in receiving the grants”.

In 2008-09, the octroi grant was Rs 826 crore in place of the expected Rs 943 crore and Rs 1,017 crore in place of expected Rs 1,139 crore in 2009-10.

However, municipal commissioner I P Gautam is happy with whatever that comes the AMC way from the government. “We expect release of Rs 250 crore from the CM’s Urban Development Fund in a few weeks. Besides this, the 15 per cent of the government contribution to the JNNURM project cost is coming regularly,” he said, adding that there was no reason for the AMC to worry at this stage. We are hopeful that the government will consider our request for octroi grant hike also. Moreover, we have a few crores in our accounts”, he said.