Team Herald
MARGAO: The Rs 8.42 crore surplus Budget for the year 2019-20 approved by the Margao Municipal Council on Thursday is based on projections that are arbitrary and not realistic as the figures do not reflect the council’s performance during the current financial year in many areas.
The budget figures reveal the actual performance of only eight months and the remaining four month figures are once again projections — it expects to receive Rs 15.74 crores in four months — when in reality it received only Rs 17.48 crore in the previous eight months.
MMC succeeded in getting only 25.36 per cent of the projected receipts in the first eight months and even considering the expected receipt in the last four months, the total receipts work out to only 48.20 per cent of the projected receipts of Rs 68.93 crore and yet for the next financial year it has projected receipts of Rs 68.20 crore.
However, Chief Officer Siddivinayak Naik justified the confidence on grounds that during the year end the receipts are always on the higher side and further pointed out that tax collection for the current financial year has already crossed the amount collected last year.
The situation is no different on the expenditure side too as in the first eight months 45.34 per cent of the total projected expenditure was incurred and taking into account the projected expenditure in the next four months, the total expenditure works out to only 45.34 per cent of the projected Rs. 65.84 crore. For the year 2019-20 the projected expenditure is Rs. 60.50 crore.
There have been some positive and some negative performance as far as revenue recovery is concerned. For example of the Rs. 20 lakhs expected to be collected by way of advertisement, signboard, posters and hoarding tax, nearly Rs. 19 lakhs were collected in the first eight months and hence for the next year, receipts under this head are pegged at Rs. 31.35 lakh.
Similarly as against the projected receipts of Rs 60 lakh from mobile towers, during the current year MMC has received Rs. 1,09,57,853 in the first four months itself and has projected receipts of Rs. 1,90,84,000 in the next financial year under this head.
On the negative side, MMC could collect only Rs 71.52 lakh in eight months as trade licence fee as against the projected Rs 1.5 crore and yet for the next year has projected receipts of 1.18 crore under this head. Similarly, it could collect only Rs 3 crore of the Rs 5 crore projected as collection by way of garbage fee.
And though MMC did not receive any funds under certain heads, it has retained those heads with practically the same receipts for the next financial year: these are Rs 3 crore for rehabilitation of gaddas, Rs 1 crore for purchase of vehicles, Rs 5 crore grants in lieu of octroi and Rs 1.5 crore for swach bharat and yet provides only Rs 1 crore for expenditure on Swach Bharat.
Although last year some heads in receipts were shown as Nil and were promised to be deleted from the budget for the year 2019-20 some of the heads still show in the budget with Nil receipts. These are ‘rent on land and buildings, interest, tax on vehicles and animals’.
Just as in the current year, the MMC does not propose to pay any overtime to its employees as expenditure under this head is shown as ‘NIL’.
Pointing out that huge amounts are spent on providing information under RTI, Chairperson Dr Babita Prabhudessai said the payments due from public are not collected due to “lackadaisical” attitude of the dealing clerks and directed the chief officer to make them accountable for loss of revenue to the MMC.
She also asked the chief officer to give specific instruction to the staff who tend to show any receipts under “Suspense account” which ultimately cannot be accounted for.
and further directed the taxation section to sign the agreement with the petroleum company before the Sub-Registrar as it would give a huge income to the council.
