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.