NAGPUR: The cash-strapped
Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has fallen Rs 400 crore short of its
revenue target for 2012-13 fiscal, and failed to touch the Rs 1,000
crore mark, which was the target set two years ago. The civic body got
major setback in property and water tax collection and also from market
department. However, chairman of standing committee Avinash Thakre has
started the process to prepare a road map for increasing revenue in
2013-14.

Thakre held a meeting of standing committee on Tuesday
with 14 proposals on the agenda. Thakre said review of revenue was
taken for just concluded 2012-13 fiscal. “Revenue from the year is
between Rs 885 to Rs 890 crore. Revenue of Rs 484 crore came up from
octroi as against target of Rs 575 crore. The shortfall was due to
dropping of two projects, weighing and scanning machines projects. The
property tax department could end up with Rs 163 crore against target of
Rs 250 crore. Around 20,000 new properties were brought under the
property tax ambit, while 40,000 more are pending assessment. The
revenue from water tax was also poor. The private water operator managed
to recover Rs 87.80 crore as against target of Rs 135 crore,” he said.

Appreciating the town planning department, Thakre said revenue of Rs
72.40 crore was collected by this department against target of Rs 52.10
crore. “Estate department’s revenue was Rs 2.84 crore against target of
Rs 2.60 crore. Market department’s performance is very poor and closed
the fiscal with Rs 4.34 crore as against target of Rs 8 crore. New
strategy and polices will be made to ensure increase in revenue,” he
said.

According to NMC
data, revenue of around Rs 300 crore was spent on maintenance and
development projects, due to revenue shortfall. The NMC’s committed
expenditure was around Rs 600 crore. Thus, many development projects are
either delayed or stalled due to paucity of funds.

The actual revenue is actually lower than even the revised budget presented by municipal commissioner Shyam Wardhane.

Hinting at huge revenue loss from LBT, Thakre said new revenue sources
are the need of the hour. “London Street is one of the options, from
which revenue of over Rs 400 crore may come up.”

Thakre added
that the standing committee has directed the health department to form
zone-wise teams comprising 60 workers to clean the nullahs as part of
pre-monsoon activity. Besides, Thakre said directives were issued to
ensure jetpatcher completes one road before shifting to another.
“Directives were given to stop zone-wise road repairing system.”

The standing committee also caught the administration on the wrong foot
on the proposal related to tender for appointing agency to prepare
registration software for LBT.