Coimbatore Corporation, it appears, has projected realistic revenue collection for financial year 2020-21 after having inflated the projection for the previous financial year.
The Corporation had hurriedly presented its budget towards March-end, a few days ahead of the COVID-19 lockdown.
It had projected its tax revenue collection for the financial year 2020-21 at ₹ 212.76 crore. The collection included income from property tax – residential, industrial and commercial with arrears, other taxes, rental income, fee and user charges, grants and subsidies, loans among others.
In its budget for the finanacial year 2019-20, the Corporation had projected tax revenue collection at ₹ 277.34 crore but ended up revising it downwards to ₹ 200.52 crore.
The Corporation sources familiar with the budgeting process explained that the projection for FY 2019-20 was based anticipating more money into the coffers because of the increase in property tax.
Now that the State government had announced that it would have a re-look at the rate of revision, the Corporation had scaled it down and cited the figures from residential property tax collection to underscore their argument – the projection for fiscal 2019-20 was ₹ 91.04 crore and for fiscal 2020-21 it was ₹ 60.13 crore.
Against the ‘Rental Income from Municipal Properties’ head, the Corporation had for financial year 2020-21 projected a collection of ₹ 34.2 crore. For the fiscal 2019-20 it had projected ₹ 35.11 crore, the sources pointed out and explained that the downward revision was because the revised estimate for the previous financial year showed that the collection was only around ₹ 29.26 crore.
At the end of the current FY, the Corporation’s projection would be way off the mark because of the impact of the lockdown. And, this appeared a distinct possibility because property tax payers for industrial and commercial establishments had started demanding some concession from the civic body and so were the people who had rented the Corporation’s properties.
That apart, this year too the Corporation seemed to have prepared its budget anticipating more money from the Central and State governments.
Under the ‘Grants and Contributions for Specific Purpose’ head the Corporation had anticipated that it would get ₹ 631.85 crore this year. In its budget for the year 2019-20 the Corporation had projected receiving ₹ 558.2 crore but ended up getting only ₹ 184.06 crore.
The sources said while the Corporation had made a realistic projection of its revenue collection for the current financial year, it was not uncommon for it to inflate numbers against the heads it accounted the money from Central and State governments.
Irrespective of whether it received the money or not, the Corporation did indulge in it because it always wanted to show a surplus budget, the sources added.