MC again fails to tally income, expenditure; dues this fiscal touches Rs 235 cr

Ludhiana: Once the richest civic body of the state, Ludhiana municipal corporation (MC) now finds it difficult to tally its income and expenditure every year. Due to paucity of funds, the development works have taken a back seat. While the officials blame poor recovery from residents for financial crisis, the Congress leaders claimed that decisions taken during Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) tenure of 10 years were responsible for most issues. They said the previous government curbed first the octroi duty was and then the zone-wise unit value-based property tax calculation was chucked in favour of a system that required owners to self assess. The imposition of Goods and Services Tax (GST) proved the last nail in revenue generation sources of civic body, they added.
For the civic body, property tax and water supply and sewerage dues are major sources of income. The civic officials have failed in achieving their income targets every year, especially from the water supply and sewerage dues. While this year property tax revenue so far is almost Rs 82 crore — officials are even claiming that they will achieve the target of Rs 100 crore — from water supply and sewerage dues till date only Rs 43 crore are recovered. Though officials said they would achieve the target of Rs 75 crore, it is going to be a Herculean task for them to recover that amount.
Similarly, the civic body is dependent on GST share, municipal tax on electricity and excise duty from the state government. But this year Rs 105 crore is pending from GST share, Rs 44 crore from municipal tax on electricity duty and Rs 36 crore is pending from excise duty.
Requesting anonymity, one of the senior officials claimed that basically it is the duty of city residents to pay their taxes to the civic body because only then they will be able to spend money on the development works. He said there are so many hurdles, including shortage of staff and political interference, that they find it difficult to recover the pending dues.
Meanwhile, senior Congress councillor Jai Parkash said, “When the MC was recovering octroi fee, we used to earn Rs 45 to Rs 50 lakh in a day. But then the previous government decided to end octroi duty despite stiff resistance from opposition. Before the imposition of GST, we were getting a share in octroi duty from the state government but now we are not even getting the regular instalment of GST share.”
According to him, the previous government’s property tax system which self-assessment and residents do not pay tax honestly. He further shared that people do not pay even water supply and sewerage dues. “And when all the sources are blocked like this, from where will civic body find the money to carry out development works,” he asked.
However, district SAD president (urban) and former MLA Ranjit Dhillon said, “The financial problems were there in our time as well, but SAD-BJP government somehow arranged for funds and did not let development works suffer. The Congress leaders since the day they came into power are holding SAD-BJP responsible for the financial crisis instead of doing something to improve the situation.” He said whenever there used to be financial crisis in their time they used to get funds from the state government but here chief minister Amarinder Singh did not bother to give anything to urban local bodies.
MC commissioner Kanwalpreet Brar admitted that recoveries have remained poor, but claimed this year there was improvement in recoveries — especially from property tax. She also said they will try to meet the targets for water supply and sewerage dues as well. She said, “If we get full share from state government then situation can become better.”