Paucity of funds has become the main excuse of the Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP), with its top officials – the Mayor and Commissioner – on repeated occasion admitting that the civic body is left with no funds to take up any major projects, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious Smart City Development Mission.
After presenting a deficit budget in the previous two years, the city corporation is now focusing on various means of revenue generation in its 2016-17 Budget, that will be tabled on Wednesday. Mayor Surendra Furtado will table the annual financial statement of the Corporation before its standing committee for approval.
“I will be placing my first budget of the tenure on April 20. As promised by St Cruz MLA Atanasio Monserrate in the election manifesto, we will ensure that Panjimites are not burdened with additional taxes. At the same time our focus will be on revenue generation,” Furtado told Herald.
Ensuring that it does not impose any new burden on Panjimites in the form of taxes, CCP proposes to implement additional load on the working-cum-business class by hiking fees of trading licenses, construction licenses, signage boards, etc. CCP is also contemplating the possibility of a marginal hike in the annual garbage tax collection from the existing Rs 1 per day to Rs 2 per day.
“Everyone is aware about the financial position of the CCP. Now, our aim is to get the Corporation out of the financial rut. With the VIth pay commission, almost 85 percent of the total revenue collection goes into salaries and wages of our employees,” Furtado said. He added, “With the VIIth pay commission, soon to be in force, we have to be financially prepared to take the additional burden.”
The council, reeling under a financial deficit of around Rs 6 crore (as per the Budget), has failed to take any major initiate towards revenue generation over the last five years. In the last two years, the government has refused to release any funds to the Corporation, considering that 17 utilization certificates worth almost Rs 7 crore are pending with CCP for the past three years. Besides this, on an average CCP has to shell out Rs 1.20 crore on salaries and wages per month.
It is a fact that internal politics within the corporation has by and large hit its progress. This conflict, or clash of self-interests, between the former Mayors and Commissioner has resulted into a loss of around Rs 25 crore to CCP exchequer annually for the last three to four years.
“We will soon float a tender for pay parking in 18 places. This will help us earn quite a sizeable amount. We now propose to have a fee of Rs 20 per vehicle per hour,” the Mayor said adding that apart from introducing new avenues, the corporation will have to also focus on collecting dues like house tax and market dues, which together comes to around nearly Rs 20 crore.
Furtado, soon after taking over as mayor, had issued notices to Panjimites to voluntarily pay pending house tax in the interest of city development.
CCP’s failure to support the Smart City mission project for Panjim financially, was one of the reasons for the city getting rejected in the first phase for funding.
