The Times of India       12.09.2014

Civic body to push for Class C status

KOLHAPUR: The Kolhapur Municipal Corporation (KMC) has decided to present a detailed report before the state government's urban development department in a week and demand ?Class C' status for the civic body.

The report will include experience of the city in running a civic body for four decades, its revenue receipts, potential to expand and the per capita income of citizens, based on the district data.

The general body meeting of the civic body on Wednesday passed a resolution demanding Class C status for the city.

However, the resolution alone may not justify the claim and hence the administration has decided to send all other details to the urban development department.

The urban development department revises civic bodys' classification after every general census. On September 1, it has released updated classification of all the 26 municipal corporations in the state, in which Kolhapur retained its Class D status. Experts in the urban development sector had expressed worries since the civic body has not been upgraded to Class C municipal corporations. Experts were also concerned about the impact on flow of funds from central and state governments for development works in the future.

Urban development expert Shashikant Phadtare told TOI that the classification status defines financial capacities of the city. "We may face financial limitations in future. There are certain criteria while planning a development project for a particular city and the classification of the civic body is a major criterion among them. Class C and B municipal corporations enjoy more funds, more lucrative provision in transfer of development rights (TDR) and reservations on land."

According to banking officials, while deciding the land value in a particular area, bankers keenly inspect the classification of the municipal corporation. "While issuing a loan or other facilities, the status of the civic body is a major deciding factor. For land or home loans the status defines how much loan can be granted. Most of the bankers follow the status closely," said an official of a nationalized bank.

The concerns were echoed in the general body meeting on Wednesday, where several corporators demanded the state government to use its powers to award Class C status to the KMC.

Sharangdhar Deshmukh of the Congress party tabled the resolution, which was supported by Nationalist Congress Party corporator Raju Latkar.

The resolution will be submitted to the city secretary of the civic body in a couple of days after which the administration will forward it to the urban development department, along with a detailed report, said municipal commissioner Vijayalakshami Bidari.

The corporators have also questioned the criteria used for classification of municipal corporations and have claimed that the per capita income of the city is much higher than some other cities, which have been given a higher status.

According to the socio-economic data for 2013-14, released by the state's statistical department, Kolhapur district's per capita net income is Rs 1,01,622.

However, there is no authentic source to gauge the city's per capita net income.

The district statistics office says that while conducting the state-wide survey, the office treats the district as a unit and, hence, there is no specific data on the per capita net income of the people in Kolhapur city.

"We collect data from every household during the surveys; however, we do not differentiate between urban and rural while assessing the net domestic product of the district or per capita net income," said an official at the district statistics department.

Efforts to convince the state govt

The KMC will send a report consisting of a resolution passed by the general body meeting; potential of the city to grow in tourism sector; religious importance of Mahalaxmi temple; potential for industrial growth in adjoined three industrial estates, and the necessity of granting special status to the civic body

Ambiguous per capita income criterion

In its recent order, the state urban development department has mentioned that despite its low population, the government has upgraded the Nashik Municipal Corporation as Nashik has fulfilled the per capita income criterion. In the case of KMC, the district administration or the district statistics department does not have the data of city's per capita income. According to the state's per capita net income records of last year, Kolhapur ranks higher than Nashik and Aurangabad municipal corporations, which were upgraded in September.

Per capita income of cities

CityPer capita income in Rs

Mumbai 1,67,736

Thane1,57,373

Pune1,50,969

Raigad1,32,607

Nagpur1,11,860

Kolhapur1,01,622

Nashik97,896

Aurangabad94,702

Nanded59,403

(Source: Maharashtra's socio-economic reports, 2013-14)