VASCO
The Mormugao municipal council ( MMC ) passed a surplus budget of Rs 2 crore 38 lakh during a special meeting on Wednesday. The municipality budget was passed after a heated discussions and suggestions on various issues given by some councillors during the meeting.
Various discussion on the matters like pending development works, lack of funds to carry out development funds were taken up during the special budget meeting.
Some of the councilors also raised concerns over the 174% increase of revenue in the budget while some councillors claimed that it was practically not possible to generate such revenue, especially as the previous years budget which was also surplus had seen how the MMC failed to raise the revenue.
Speaking to media MMC Chairperson Damodar Kaskar said that the budget would be re considered to check for any errors and presented before the council again if required.
" We have to present the budget every year but there are certain issues raised and we are trying to see if the budget can be considered for re adjustment to resolve the issue. We had a major discussion on how we could generate the revenue that we are expecting in the budget and we have informed that we are looking to resolve the long pending litigation with the oil tanking companies and recover our huge outstanding from them." said Kaskar.
Meanwhile Councillor Fredrick Henriques said that budget should be realistic and practical.
"This budget affects the council and the general people and it is our responsibility as Councillor to ensure people get a proper budget. There are certain mistakes in the figures which we have pointed out and we have seen that MMC is looking at 174 per cent hike in revenue which seems unrealistic. They have said that this year the income has been Rs 22 crores while the next income is shown in the range of 62 Crores and our discussion was how will MMC raise this kind of money when people are already struggling," said Henriques.
Vice chairperson Ameya Chopdekar said that salaries of staff and other issues were discussed.
" We would get octroi earlier and we had sufficient cash to take care of salaries and after the octroi was withdrawn, MMC started facing issues. The issue was raised and we discussed on how MMC could generate revenue like stringent methods to collect pending house tax, trade license charges and rent, etc so that we have good revenue to ensure smooth functioning of the MMC, " said Chopdekar.
