Nagpur: Cash crunch makes civic chief stop all development works

NAGPUR: With the Nagpur Municipal Corporation experiencing severe financial crisis, municipal commissioner Tukaram Mundhe told the special general body meeting he had restricted civic administration from floating new tenders for development works until the condition improved. "I have also issued instructions to stop all works, whether work orders were issued or not," said Mundhe.
Replying to a query raised by former mayor and BJP corporator Pravin Datke, the civic chief said, “I found the NMC was not even paying income tax and provident fund contribution though it was deducting them from employees' salary. Besides, NMC was yet to pay Rs400 crore outstanding to contractors for various works."
Like elected members, civic administration too wanted development works in the city. But we have to carry them out as per priority, he said. Mundhe also appealed to the corporators that they should propose development works as per its priority.
The civic body has failed to contribute its share in many projects funded by state government. Mundhe cited example of cement road projects. The other partners — state government and Nagpur Improvement Trust— had contributed Rs100 crore each for the cement road projects. “We have not contributed our share so we could not issue work orders for conversion of tar roads into cement roads,” Mundhe explained.
In Rs2,412.64 crore Nag River Pollution Abatement Project, the Centre, state and NMC will bear share of 60%, 25% and 15%, respectively. NMC will have to contribute Rs324 crore, but the current financial condition won’t allow it, he added.
For many other state sponsored projects like Nagar Utthan, NMC will have to contribute 30% of the cost for land acquisitions. It also has other mandatory contributions in projects implemented under district planning committee. “Under these circumstances, we could not undertake any new project. Instead we should concentrate on ongoing projects,” he said.
“I have imposed the restrictions to bring in financial discipline,” he said.
Datke also sought to know whether Mundhe had issued directives that the standing committee had no power to okay proposals for administration nod. Following demand from senior BJP corporator Dayashankar Tiwari, Datke, Congress corporators Sandip Sahare and Praful Gudadhe, mayor Sandip Joshi directed the administration to table a report on financial condition of NMC in next general body meeting.
In December last year, the then municipal commissioner Abhijit Bangar too had imposed a 25% cut in budget presented by standing committee chairman Pradip Pohane. Pohane had presented a budget of Rs 3,197.60 crore. Bangar dropped various works pertaining to basic amenities worth over Rs 772 crore.