The Hindu      05.04.2017 

Centre serves show-cause notice on Corporation

Short payment of Rs. 4.03-crore service tax from 2011 to 2015

The Centre has issued a show-cause notice to the city Corporation for short payment of Rs. 4.03 crore in service taxes from 2011 to 2015. The show-cause notice is based on the Annual Financial Statement (AFS) for these financial years.

The local body maintains that this is an inflated figure due to the errors in the financial statements prepared by it.

It has now employed a chartered accountant to sift through the financial statements for these years to correct these errors and reduce the amount that it has to pay in service taxes. The issue came up for discussion in the council meeting held on Tuesday.

The show-cause notices are for short payment of Rs. 3.25 crore from the financial years 2011-12 to 2013-14 and for Rs. 77,91,228 for the financial year 2014-15.

“The service tax is for the various rent collections of the Corporation. However, since all the systems, especially in the zonal offices, are not properly connected together, there have been some discrepancies in the calculation.

Miscalculation

From what we know, this mammoth amount came from calculating the service tax based on the total revenue, instead of just the rent collections. So, we have employed a chartered accountant to get the accurate numbers for these years. It is a complicated work to sift out these amounts,” said Deputy Mayor Rakhi Ravikumar.

The service tax for the financial year 2011-12 has now been calculated again and the amount has come down drastically, compared to the earlier calculations. The issue caused a minor uproar among the Opposition councillors, who connected it to the recently presented Corporation budget, and accused the Deputy Mayor of presenting inflated figures in the Budget. However, she hit back saying that the show-cause notice was for the years till 2015 and the recent Budgets did not have such problems.

AMRUT rating

In the credit ratings as part of the Central Government’s Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), the city Corporation has been given a rating of ‘BWR BB,’ as per which it is a local body with “moderate degree of safety and carrying moderate credit risk.”

The Hindu       05.04.2017  

Sanitary waste collection up, but Mahadevapura lags

Official says agency not finalised for the zone during the pilot phase

Two months after the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) started collecting sanitary waste separately, approximately 17 tonnes of it are being collected across all the zones in the city daily. But this just a fraction of what the citizens generate, and the scope of collection varies widely: while south, R.R. Nagar and Yelahanka zones contribute to a major chunk, the process has not even begun in Mahadevapura.

“We have not yet finalised an agency for Mahadevapura zone as no one was ready to take it up during the ongoing pilot phase,” said Hemalatha, executive engineer, Solid Waste Management. She said tenders for sanitary waste processing from all the zones would be finalised by the end of April.

N.S. Ramakanth, member of the Solid Waste Management Round Table, said the problem lay in the delay in allocation of funds. “There was no specific allocation in the last budget for sanitary waste management. Other than one agency, the others have been asking for full down payment,” said Mr. Ramakanth.

Waste management agencies have also mandated that sanitary waste be brought to the incineration plants in non-chlorinated yellow bags, an additional cost the BBMP has to bear. “Once this year’s budgetary allocation comes, processing of sanitary waste will get a boost,” Mr. Ramakanth said. An amount of Rs. 898.94 crore has been allotted for garbage disposal and SWM in the BBMP’s 2017-18 budget.

According to the official, 80 to 90 tonnes of sanitary waste is generated across Bengaluru daily.

In February, an average of 9.57 tonnes of sanitary waste was collected daily, and this increased to 17 tonnes in March. South zone led the way with a maximum collection of 15.15 tonnes of sanitary waste out of 1201.87 tonnes of waste overall in March. However, Mr. Ramakanth says, the numbers are being driven by the likes of Yelahanka ward and KSR Layout where a robust system of segregation is already in place.

Sharing responsibility

The BBMP is also exploring the option of getting companies to pick the tab on waste from their products under Extended Product Responsibility. “The product is made by companies and used by residents. It is unfair to put the entire responsibility of managing product waste on civic agencies,” said Ms. Hemalatha. “Such practices have been implemented in other countries with a fair degree of success.”