NAGPUR: New year, same old story. Like for some years now, this year too the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) is set to miss its annual revenue target by a huge margin unless, of course, it wields a magic wand and mops up about Rs 1,100 crore shortfall in the next one and a half month or six weeks.
The then municipal commissioner Tukaram Mundhe had projected NMC’s income for the current financial year at Rs2,545 crore, while standing committee chairman Vijay Zalke’s budget pegged expenditure for the year at Rs2,731 crore.
As against a target of Rs2,731 crore, the civic body has recovered only Rs1,618 crore in 10 months. By this time of the year, the NMC should have earned at least Rs2,275.83 crore.
This revenue shortfall will reflect in the revised budget for the current fiscal to be presented by municipal commissioner Radhakrishnan B, who will also present the budget for 2021-22 at a special meeting of the standing committee this month.
Of the Rs 1,618 crore revenue earned in 10 months, the civic body received over Rs1,242 crore from the government, while generating a paltry Rs 368.99 crore from its own sources like property tax, water works dept etc. It shows NMC’s increasing dependence on the state government’s largesse due to its inability and poor efforts to generate own funds.
According to sources, the property tax collection in the previous year was adversely affected as the lockdown led to halt of commercial activities, sources said. Moreover, the slowdown in real estate during lockdown months led to decrease in revenue of the development plan department, they said.
The budgets were to be presented on or before February 15 but got delayed due to Covid-19 pandemic. Radhakrishnan B will present the budgets before Zalke, whose tenure will end in March first week.
According to data procured from accounts and finance department, till February 3 the NMC received Rs4.02 lakh as local body tax, property tax (Rs179.66 crore), water works (Rs125.34 crore), market (Rs6.75 crore), town planning department (Rs25.90 crore), health department (Rs7.22 crore), birth and death certificates (Rs52.02 lakh), miscellaneous (Rs9.40 crore) and Goods and Services Tax grant (Rs1,007 crore).
Given the poor revenue generation, Radharksihnan has already clamped restrictions on development works. Besides this, he has announced 50% cut in the development works by eliminating low priority works.
Sources pointed out the shortfall was due to the inflated revenue targets set by the standing committee. But the elected members keep inflating the budget every year while opposing any tax reforms to generate more revenue.
Due to Covid-19 pandemic, Zalke had presented his budget almost eight months late.