Councilor Anand Bhaidkar making a point during the discussion on provisions of the budget of Mapusa Municipal Council on Tuesday. Chairperson Shubhangi Vaigankar, councilors and senior civic officials were also present. Captured by : Agnelo Pereira
MAPUSA
With no new development works planned, the Mapusa Municipal Council (MMC) has approved a budget of Rs 59.40 crore for financial year 2022-23 at the special council meeting held on Tuesday.
The civic body’s financial statement indicates that it relies on government funds for its functioning as Rs 19 crores of the estimated revenue has been shown as grants-in-aid received from the state and central government.
While the council has set a target for revenue generation of Rs 59.40 crore, it expects to spend Rs 54.82 crore, making the budget Rs 4.58 crore surplus.
Among its major earnings in the new fiscal are Rs 4.5 crore from house tax and Rs 4.5 crore from rent.
Besides, trade and professional tax and market sopo collections are expected to fetch Rs 1.20 crore and Rs 1.30 crore respectively.
The council also hopes to earn Rs 1 crore from imposition of house tax on illegal houses, 3.50 crore from construction licence fees, Rs 1.80 crore from garbage tax, Rs 1.23 crore from tax on industrial estate sheds and Rs 10 lakh from transfer fees of flats/shops.
The MMC has planned on incurring Rs 5.50 crore for “development works”, while Rs 73 lakh has been reserved for desilting of wells, road repairs, drains and footpath and Rs 23 lakh for development, repairs and maintenance of gardens, urinals, office and garage.
Interestingly, although the municipal library has been shut down for more than two years, the council has made a provision of Rs 15 lakh for establishment of a librarian in this fiscal.
At the meeting, the council also approved Rs 4 crore for “salary reserve fund”.
Some of the councilors pointed out that the budget estimates were unrealistic and the council has failed to take adequate steps to generate revenue for the civic body.
“Why has the council failed to carry out assessment of the house tax? Besides, the illegal houses in the municipal jurisdiction are enjoying all the facilities but do not pay a single rupee to the council. Why is the council shying from taxing these individuals?” asked Anand Bhaikdar, councilor of ward 1.
Similarly, councilor, Shashank Narvekar pointed out that the council was including professional tax in the budget estimates but the civic body was not collecting tax from the professionals in Mapusa.
“I am an advocate by profession but nobody collects professional tax from me. Similarly, no tax is collected from doctors and chartered accountants in town. We are taxing the unorganized sector with the trade tax but are shying away from collecting tax from the organized professionals,” Narvekar rued.
MMC, Chairperson, Shubhangi Vaigankar only blamed the previous councils for failing to do their job properly.
“Most of our funds go in payment of staff salaries. The previous councils only inflated the budgetary figures but failed to make adequate provision for salaries. They also failed to carry out house tax assessment,” Vaigankar said.
She further assured the council that assessment of house tax and trade licence will be taken up very soon.
Besides the councilors, Chief Officer, Sitaram Sawal, Municipal Engineer-II, Prashant Narvekar and Accountant, Smitha Faldessai were also present at the special council meeting.
