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AMC school board moots budget cut for next year

Monday, 23 December 2013 09:25 administrator
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The Indian Express               23.12.2013

AMC school board moots budget cut for next year

The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) School Board has proposed to slash its budget by Rs 38 crore for the academic year 2014-15. This has been done by cutting down chunks of expenditure on student development and teacher related activities, even as the "establishment costs" increased substantially.

The school board has come out with a relatively smaller annual budget of Rs 612.95 crore for accounting year 2014-15, which was presented in a meeting of board members presided over by chairman Jagdish Bhavsar.

This is much below the budget of Rs 651-crore passed in 2013-14, admits Bhavsar while simultaneously saying that the exact size of the budget will be declared later.

Interestingly, the proportion of money allocated for "student development" in the proposed budget has dipped from 3.43 per cent in 2013-14, to 2.44 per cent in 2014-15. Even the funds allocated for "education and teacher related activities" have dipped from 4.3 per cent to just 1.62 per cent in 2014-15.

"The reason for the cut next year's size of the budget is due to the reduction of Rs 2.2 crore in establishment expenditure, cut in salaries of teachers by Rs 3.73 crore and reduction in payment of Rs 18 crore toward pensions," says Bhavsar.

Over 92 per cent of the proposed budget — amounting to Rs 565 crore — will be spent as establishment expenses. Remaining 3.72 per cent of the total amount has been allocated for schools and office expenses.

"Out of total amount of Rs 612 crore proposed, expected share from the state government is Rs 459 crore and municipal corporation Rs 153 crore," said Bhavsar.

Under new projects, an amount of Rs 7-crore has been proposed for special type of benches for students of Class I-V and an amount of Rs 6-crore for municipal school board building while Rs 21 lakh for students' health schemes.

This proposed budget will be sent to the AMC's standing committee which after approval will be discussed by the municipal board in the coming weeks.

 

CM promises to regularise illegal structures, PCMC chief says demolition drive will go on

Monday, 23 December 2013 09:13 administrator
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The Indian Express               23.12.2013

CM promises to regularise illegal structures, PCMC chief says demolition drive will go on

Even as Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan on Friday announced that his government will in a month take a policy decision on regularising illegal structures in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, Municipal Commissioner Shrikar Pardeshi Saturday said his administration would continue with the demolition drive till the new Act comes into force.

"The demolition drive will continue till the state government enacts a law regularsing the structures," said Pardeshi who will come face-to-face with the Chief Minister who will be at Pimpri-Chinchwad for a function on Sunday.

The chief minister was responding to the issue which was raised by MLAs from Pune. Chavan also held a meeting in the Speaker's cabin with four Pune MLAs who have resigned over the issue. He requested them to take back their resignation since the government has decided to regularise illegal structures.

"The CM said the government will take a policy decision in a month's time and then during the budget session introduce a bill to regularise the structures," said Laxman Jagtap, an associate MLA pf NCP who had resigned in protest against the delay.

Jagtap said the decision of the state government will benefit illegal structures across Maharashtra. "The government has decided to amend MRTP Act, Maharashtra Land Revenue Code and the Village Panchayat Act. Illegal structures in entire Maharashtra will benefit," said Shiv Sena MLC Neelam Gorhe.

But the PCMC does not seem to be in a mood to halt the drive. "Though the Chief Minister has made the announcement, we will wait for a written directive. Otherwise the drive against illegal structures will continue till the Act actually comes into existence," the PCMC chief said. For a good measure, Pardeshi added,"The demolition drive will not stop...We will continue to raze structures as per the directions of the Bombay High Court."

According to senior government officials, there are lakhs of illegal structures in Maharashtra. "Those structures where side margins have been extended are likely to be regularised. Structures that have come up on land reserved in development plan or in green belt cannot be regularised," officials said.

For a year and half, the issue of illegal constructions has been raging in the industrial town of Pimpri-Chinchwad where the Bombay High Court has directed that over a lakh illegal structures be demolished. The PCMC has so far demolished over 400 structures and has refused to buckle under pressure from politicians. The NCP rules Pimpri-Chinchwad where Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar's writ runs.

 

BDA Demolishes Illegal Structure

Monday, 23 December 2013 08:05 administrator
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The New Indian Express               23.12.2013

BDA Demolishes Illegal Structure

Stepping up its act against illegal constructions, the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) began tearing down another commercial complex in the heart of the city on Saturday.

The Enforcement Wing of BDA began demolition of top two floors of a four storey garment shop in Unit III along Janpath. BDA had declared the two floors illegal as the building plan was not approved.

Originally, the shopping complex had approval for the ground and first floor. But, the second and third floor were constructed in 2008, allegedly without the approval of BDA.

According to sources, BDA had filed a case against the illegal expansion by the shop owner in 2008 itself. Following which a case had been filed before the Orissa High Court which later gave the BDA a go ahead.

Since then BDA had issued notices to the owner of the garment shop to vacate the premise, but to no avail. When the demolition began on Saturday morning, the shop owner Manikchand Maheswari said that he has not received any notice from the BDA.

“This is shocking for us, we had no clue this would happen and that the top two floors were illegal,” said Maheswari. The shop owners reportedly pay a monthly rent of `2.40 lakh per month to the buildings owner, Subhranshu Samantray.

Enforcement officer of BDA Debaprasad Das said that the case against the garment shop has been going on since 2008 and all the parties involved are well aware of the illegality of the structure.

BDA, he said, has identified 32 more commercial complexes in the city, which violate BDA(Planning and Building Standards) Regulations - 2008 and action will be taken against them.

BDA had begun demolition of a five-storey building which was under construction in Ashok Nagar last month.

But demolition had to be stopped after the building owner got a stay order against the demolition from the High Court, one week after the demolition began.

 
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