The public consultation organised by Mangaluru City Corporation to prepare the annual budget for 2021-22 turned out to be a forum to air grievances against the civic body, though some suggestions to be incorporated in the budget also came in.
G. Hanumantha Kamath, president, Nagarika Hitarakshana Samithi, Mangaluru, suggested that the corporation should in the budget reserve funds for paying compensation to those people whose land will be submerged when water at the Thumbe vented dam is stored up to seven metres high.
Now, the civic body is storing water up to six metres high. If water is stored up to seven metres high, the civic body will require about ₹ 145 crore to pay compensation to those whose land will be submerged.
He said that the corporation should propose to revise building licence fee for commercial and apartment buildings in the budget as it has not been revised for many years now.
Mr. Kamath said that the corporation should auction the right to put up hoardings in public places in its jurisdiction for every three years instead of increasing the ground rent by a certain extent and allowing the same agencies to continue it every year. When auctioned, the revenue of the civic body can go up, he added.
He said that the civic body is not collecting the ground rent from the scrap dealer in the South Wharf regularly. The rent for the past two years is pending to be collected along with interest. The dealer had not paid the ground rent from 2007-08 onwards. When he (Mr. Kamath) sought the details of payment under the Right to Information Act, the dealer immediately paid the pending rent in three instalments till 2018-19. But the civic body did not charge any interest on it. The ground rent for the subsequent two financial years has not been paid, he said.
Ullal Padmanabha, an activist and a retired government engineer, said that the corporation should put an end to unnecessary expenses and plug revenue leakage.
