The Indian Express 31.10.2013
With Rs 1,000-cr revenue deficit, PMC won’t take up new projects
Staring at a 25 per cent deficit in revenue collection compared to the last fiscal, Pune Municipal Commissioner Mahesh Pathak has urged all civic departments to focus only on completing ongoing development works instead of starting new ones.
On Tuesday, the civic administration reviewed budget implementation for the first six months of the financial year and found that the revenue collection is "much lesser" than the set target. The estimated budget of PMC for the current financial year is Rs 4,167 crore and the revenue collection by September-end has been Rs 1,500 crore. "The estimate submitted by various civic departments indicate that the revenue collection is going to be 25 per cent less than the set target of Rs 4,167 crore.The shortage is going to be huge and the only alternative is to cut the expenditure," said a civic official.
Worried over the emerging situation, the civic chief has asked heads of all civic departments to be careful in spending funds. "The focus should be on completing the work that spilled over from last year instead of starting new projects. There should not be any spillover for the next year as the situation is going to be more tight in 2014-15 due to committed expenditure for implementing Metro rail project and new projects under JNNURM," he said.
The PMC budget estimate went wrong due to the impact of revenue collection from local body tax (LBT), introduced this financial year to replace octroi. The civic administration has set revenue from LBT to be around Rs 1,700 crore, while it has managed to collect only Rs 500 crore in the first half of the year. "The LBT department has conveyed that it can manage collection of up to Rs 1,100 crore in the year as against the set Rs 1,700 crore. Further, the revenue collection from property tax and building permissions is also not going to be as estimated due to the slowdown in real estate business," said a senior official from the civic accounts department.
"The overall revenue collection is going to be Rs 1,050 crore less than the estimate," he said, adding that of the remaining Rs 3,000 crore, the fixed expenditure of Rs 1,800 crore of PMC goes in paying salaries, maintenance and administrative work.
Meanwhile, the LBT department is exploring all possibilities to increase its revenue collection and is consulting other civic bodies on the steps taken by them to get maximum revenue collection from LBT.
