NMC misses revised revenue target by Rs259.31 crore

Nagpur: Even after slashing standing committee’s budget by 22%, Nagpur Municipal Corporation officials have failed to achieve the revised revenue target set by municipal commissioner Abhijit Bangar. He had revised ex-standing committee chairman Virendra Kukreja’s Rs2,946 crore to Rs2,277.06 crore. But the civic body only managed to generate approximately Rs2017.75 crore.
The NMC’s dependency on government grants to fund its budget has increased this year too if one scrutinizes the civic body’s financial data. According to figures procured from NMC, over 76% of the income in 2018-19 came from state government, while less 23.47% of their income came from local taxes like property tax, water tax, town planning department and market dues etc.

Of the total Rs2,017.75 crore, the NMC received Rs1,544.22 crore grants from state government which also included Rs869.07 as goods and services tax grant.

The NMC also missed the target of Bangar, who had proposed NMC’s income for 2018-19 to be Rs2018.53 crore. He had set a target of property tax revenue at Rs400 crore. The standing committee had aimed at mopping up Rs509 crore, which was revised to Rs275 crore by Bangar. In reality, the tax department could generate only Rs228.45 crore.

The Town Planning Department, which contributes a major chunk to revenue, was expected to earn Rs252.50 crore, but managed a mere Rs42.82 crore. The market department hoped to collect Rs12.50 crore, but officials recovered only Rs8.27 crore. The Water Supply Department had to recover Rs136.20 crore against the target of Rs180 crore.

The civic body attributed the poor collection to various factors. According to NMC officials, various duties like Swachh Bharat Mission, Lok Sabha election among other reasons which had a major impact on the revenue.

Though low revenue collection affected the development work planned for the city, the timely release of grants from state government has helped the civic body to continue the works in the city. Even the former standing committee Kukreja had worked hard to increase GST grants from Rs52 crore to Rs86 crore. The financial situation was so grim that NMC had to procure a loan of Rs200 crore for development works.

Civic activists ridiculed the reasons cited for poor financial recovery. Citing TOI story on “3.53L owners owe NMC Rs282cr in years of unpaid property tax”, activists pointed out that the NMC should focus on improving property tax collection since beginning of the financial year.

According to them, the NMC should spend on development on the basis of tax recovery as per ward basis. “If any particular ward is generating good tax, priority of development works should be given to such areas,” said activists.