MCG doubles its budget for next fiscal

GURUGRAM: The MCG has proposed a budget of Rs 2,038 crore for the 2020-21 fiscal year. The expenditure of Rs 2,038 crore, includes revenue expenditure of Rs 1,256 crore and capital expenditure of Rs 782 crore. The revenue generation has been estimated at Rs 4,459 crore, that include the revenue and capital income.
According to the civic agency officials, the expenditure for the next fiscal year has been estimated two times more than the expenditure of the current fiscal year (2019-20) that was nearly Rs 850 crore (see box).

Initially, the proposed revenue generation for 2019-20 was estimated at Rs 2,605 crore, however the generation came to be Rs 417 crore for the same financial year. These projections for the 2020-21 fiscal were tabled in a meeting chaired by the mayor with the councillors on Saturday.
However, councillors claimed that that these projections are inflated. “The estimates say that MCG will earn Rs 1,100 crore from house tax. I said in the meeting that the house tax collection from 2008 to 2016 was Rs 800 crore, so how can one year’s collection be projected at Rs 1,100 crore? They have shown inflated collections. This will gradually enhance the deficit,” said R S Rathee, councillor of ward 34.
Raising another concern, Rathee said that the MCG had the surplus budget of Rs 325 crore for the 2019-20 fiscal year. “The collection (revenue) was Rs 417 crore and the expenditure was Rs 850 crore. The deficit was Rs 432 crore. I saw the entire budget but could not find how they covered this deficit. It is either they have used the fixed deposit (FD) of the civic body or have taken loan against the FD,” added Rathee.
Under the revenue expenditure head, the establishment expenses, which include salaries and wages of employees, is also proposed to increase from Rs 137.07 crore to Rs 201.78 crore. The projections also show that the capital expenditure on dispensary and other medical facilities for the 2019-20 fiscal is 0 and it is proposed to increase to Rs 5.50 crore for the 2020-21 fiscal year.