With Rs150cr state fund in kitty, NMC to pay its creditors

Nagpur: The cash-strapped Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has chalked out a plan to disburse Rs150 crore received from the state government as special fund.
Keeping a Rs30 crore balance, the NMC will disburse rest of the amount to stakeholders, said standing committee chairman Virendra Kukreja.

The decision to pay creditors was taken at the standing committee meeting on Thursday. Kukreja said the panel empowered officiating municipal commissioner Ravindra Thakre to utilize the fund. However, the civic administration will have to take approval of the chairman, he said.

“The creditors will start getting their payments from Friday,” he said.

Kukreja said payments will be made in accordance with the bills prepared by the accounts department.

He added that the NMC is ensuring that all the stakeholders celebrate Diwali happily. However, contractors entrusted to maintain street lights have stopped work due to outstanding amount since April.

Many areas were in the dark and even mayor Nanda Jichkar on Thursday convened a meeting with the electricity department and contractors. She assured to clear dues that have already crossed Rs18 crore. To this, Kukreja clarified that the civic body will not release any payments to electricity contractors as some cases were pending in the high court.

Teachers from NMC-run schools have threatened to go on strike as the civic administration has failed to release arrears of 6 years. Kukreja said a meeting will be convened to address the issue.

From the special grant, the NMC has also earmarked Rs10 crore for the waste-to-energy project at Bhandewadi and Rs10 crore for bio-mining.

Though Kukreja has allocated Rs13.67 crore to clear dues of Aapli Bus operators, including three red bus operators and two ticketing agencies, the transport department will approach the civic administration to allocate more funds as outstanding dues of the latter have crossed over Rs40 crore.