Badnore assured them that payment of salaries and development work in the city would not be stalled.
Three days after Congress Councillor Devinder Singh Babla wrote to UT Administrator V P Singh Badnore regarding the financial crunch in Municipal Corporation Chandigarh (MCC), councillors from BJP chief Sanjay Tandon’s camp also met him on the issue on Tuesday. Badnore assured them that payment of salaries and development work in the city would not be stalled.
Twelve councillors and seven nominated ones had gone to meet the UT administrator over the financial crisis being faced by the Municipal Corporation Chandigarh. Home Secretary Anurag Aggarwal, who is also the Secretary, Local Government, was also present in the meeting.
“The administrator heard all the facts related to the finances and assured the councillors that neither any work would be stalled nor payments of salaries to employees would be affected,” an official, who attended the meeting, said.
BJP Councillor Arun Sood said in the meeting that agendas worth Rs 35 crore, which were prepared by the road divisions to carry out re-carpeting, had been returned, while bills worth Rs 16 crore, which contractors had submitted to road, public health and other divisions, had to be stopped as the MCC had no money.
The MCC is scheduled to receive a total of Rs 438 crore (Rs 267.26 crore grant-in-aid and receipts worth Rs 171 crore) from the UT Administration for the new fiscal. But, the committed liabilities, including salaries, pensions, daily wages, outsourcing, petrol payments, electricity and water bills, are Rs 492 crore. Thus, there will be a shortfall of Rs 54 crore, the administrator was told.
It was also stated that the MCC’s balance at Oriental Bank of Commerce is just Rs 3 crore, while fixed deposits of the civic body as on March 31, 2018, is just Rs 18 crore only. Pending liabilities such as salaries and pensions are Rs 21.84 crore. Not just have the new agendas been stopped, but the existing works of road re-carpeting, sewerage, green belts and toe walls worth around Rs 20 crore have been put on hold. The contractors have stopped taking up work as funds have dried up, the councillors told the administrator.
BJP Councillor Asha Jaswal said that the UT Administration should at least give the MCC’s share. The councillors said that the UT Administration’s total receipts was Rs 3,738 crore and they ought to give 17.5 per cent of it to the municipal corporation, which was about Rs 654 crore.
Home Secretary Aggarwal told the councillors that the administration would help, but the municipal corporation needed to generate revenue at their own end too. Badnore has now asked the corporation to give all the details of the finances, which were discussed in the meeting, in writing. Another meeting will be held after UT Adviser Parimal Rai returns to work next week. Congress upset over ‘meeting only with BJP’
Congress councillors were unhappy with the UT administrator holding the meeting only with the BJP members. A press release, issued on Tuesday, said, “We appreciate the fact that UT Administrator V P Singh Badnore has taken immediate cognizance of the recent letter written to him by Opposition Leader of MCC Devinder Singh Babla. The meeting would have been even more productive had the administrator, instead of only meeting the BJP councillors, given an equal opportunity to all the elected representatives to be heard, including the Opposition…”