Team Herald
PANJIM: The Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) on Monday passed a surplus budget of Rs 1.72 crore for the financial year 2023-24.
Interacting with mediapersons after presenting the budget, CCP Mayor Rohit Monserrate said that the budget has increased by 1.76 per cent as compared to the last fiscal year.
The estimated total revenue for the financial year 2023-24 is more than Rs 99.81 crore while the total expenditure is over Rs 98.09 crore.
“It’s a surplus budget of Rs 1,72,51,500. For the last two financial years, we have not had to break our fixed deposits for salaries and other things,” Monserrate said.
Senior opposition councillors Surendra Furtado and Uday Madkaikar remained absent from the meeting convened to discuss and pass the budget.
Later in the day, Surendra Furtado in a statement issued here said that as against the total estimates of Rs 84.48 crore during 2022-23 only Rs 39.70 crore are the actual receipts for eight months and probable for next four months is projected as Rs 13.47 crore, thus totaling to Rs 53.17 crore.
“There is a shortfall of Rs 31.31 crore,” he pointed out.
Furtado questioned as to why this amount of Rs 31.31 crore has not been collected and also sought to know about the parameters applied to arrive at the recovery of next four months, and how it is going to be recovered.
Commenting on the ongoing Smart City works, the City Mayor endorsed the views of his father Revenue Minister Atanasio `Babush’ Monserrate that the respective government departments and their engineers would be held responsible if Panjim witnesses floods during the monsoon.
“We have started losing our patience; the works are going on for a long time. We understand the pain of the people. We expect them to do a good job quickly,” the Mayor said.
