Netas raise educational tours, leisure budget

VADODARA: It seems that the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) officials and elected functionaries will have a good financial year 2023-24 when it comes to leisure and ‘educating’ themselves on tours.
The civic body has increased the budget for such activities as well as for those expenses for the meetings of the standing committee.
Among other changes, the standing committee approved an increase in the expenses on education tours and seminars of corporators, officials, and elected functionaries as well as sports activities for them as compared to what the VMC commissioner had proposed.
A new budget head of meeting expenses was also introduced to take care of expenses of refreshments during the committee’s meetings.
The commissioner had proposed earmarking Rs 20 lakh for education tours and seminars. However, the standing committee increased it to Rs 50 lakh. Similarly, the budget for sports for elected representatives and officials was increased to Rs 50 lakh from Rs 25 lakh proposed by the commissioner.
An official said that the amount for sports was increased as VMC will be hosting the annual cricket tournament of municipal corporations in which teams of mayors and commissioners from all corporations in the state are invited. “The expenses for the tournament will be included in this budget head,” the official said.
A source said that for the past few years, including the period of the Covid-19 pandemic, VMC officials, particularly the elected representatives, had not gone for many seminars or education tours. This year, there was a possibility of such travel increasing and the elected representatives going together on an education tour was also being explored. It is no secret that such tours are less work and more pleasure.
The committee also opened a new budget head of meeting expenses and earmarked Rs 2.5 lakh for expenses during the meetings. Earlier, the expenses towards refreshments were made from the discretionary grant of the standing committee chairman. The discretionary grant is used for tea, coffee and refreshments, and other such expenses in the chairman’s office.
The chairman’s grant was proposed at Rs 3.25 lakh by the commissioner, but this has been reduced to Rs two lakh now and the meeting expenses will not be done from this fund. However, if one were to add the new budget head, this accounts for a rise of Rs 1.25 lakh.
In all, education tours, sports and meeting expenses will amount to an expense of a little over Rs 1.04 crore. This is more than double of what the commissioner had proposed at Rs 48.25 lakh.