The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has proposed another mammoth budget at ₹11,538 crore for 2019-20, despite its pathetic performance in spending the sanctioned amounts for the current year.
The draft budget was introduced in the Standing Committee meeting on Thursday, which would be discussed at the next meeting of the committee, before being presented at the General Body meeting.
As is the case with last year, double bedroom housing scheme has occupied major portion of the budget estimates at ₹5,188 crore, accounting for 47% of the total.
Funding for the housing project is expected to come from the government through the Telangana State Housing Corporation, while ₹200 crore more for development and upgrading of major roads is expected from the Hyderabad Road Development Corporation.
Devoid of these two components, the budget estimate for GHMC comes down to ₹6,150 crore.
Current year’s budget figures have been significantly brought down in the revised estimates. From ₹13,150 crore total budget, the estimates have been moderated to ₹8,935 crore.
This has resulted in drastic cut-down in the budget for double bedroom project in the current year, from ₹6,318 crore to ₹3,410 crore, owing to the corporation’s inability to spend the amount.
It is doubtful if even the revised budget estimates would prove to be any closer to the ground reality, as the actual spending for the current year has remained abysmally low up to September, 2018.
Against the total sanctions of ₹15,239 crore for the year, the corporation could spend only ₹2,461 crore in the first six months, which is just 16%.
The corporation has failed on the Operation & Maintenance front, going by the ₹225 crore spent in the first half as against the ₹1,263 crore sanctions. Against ₹4,100 crore sanctions for Roads and Pavements, ₹381 crore was spent.
For the estimated ₹2,675 Revenue expenditure, actual expenditure was about ₹800 crore in the first six months, and the capital expenditure ₹1,662 crore against the revised budgetary estimates of ₹6,395 crore.
Revenue receipts stood at ₹1,279 crore till September, against the revised budgetary estimate of ₹2,907 crore. Capital receipts, the main component of which is Plan Grants from State government, stood at ₹1,462 crore against the revised estimate of ₹6,395 crore.
Of the total plan grants of ₹8,000 crore, only ₹1,131 crore was spent. Estimates of plan grants have been revised to ₹3,929 crore for the current year, and pegged at ₹8,730 crore for next year.