MARGAO
The Opposition picked up holes in the Margao Municipal budget estimates for the financial year 2022-23 as the civic body presented a Rs 6.5 crore deficit budget before the Council for approval on Thursday.
The opposition pounced on the Chairperson Lyndon Pereira and Chief Officer, Agnelo Fernandes, demanding to know how the Council intends to mop up the revenue to achieve the targets in the deficit budget. While the budget estimated pegged the expenditure for the new financial year to a whopping Rs 65.12 crore, the receipts were only shown as Rs 58.88 crore, a Rs 6.5 crore deficit.
Ganashyam and other councillors also took to task the Chairperson and the Chief Officer over the delay in placing the budget estimates before the Council. Ganashyam pointed out the Municipalities Act mandates the Chief Officer to place the budget estimates before the Standing Committee before December 31, pointing out that the entire exercise ought to be complete before February-end.
While admitting that the budget estimates could not meet the deadline as per the Act, due to the intervening election code of conduct, both the Chairperson and the Chief Officer later assured the Council that they would move the government for condonation of delay in approving the budget estimates.
During discussion on the budget estimates, Ganashyam demanded to know the Council’s plan to recover the huge outstanding arrears, running into crores of rupees. He wondered why the civic body has not been going hammer and thongs against the cellular companies for non-payment of revenue to the civic body. When Assistant Engineer Vishant Naik pointed out that the civic body has received revenue for a 10-year period from the companies in lieu of setting up the mobile towers in the city for a period, the Council insisted that the civic body conduct a fresh survey to ascertain the number of new towers that have come in the last 2-3 years.
Seeking details on the recoveries effected by the Council during the last three months, Recovery Officer, Bhagat said revenue amounting to Rs 1.82 crore has been made since he assumed office in January. The councillors told the Chairperson to provide a vehicle and workers to the Recovery Officer to effect the recoveries.
In his reply to the question how the Council intends to mop up revenue to achieve the budgetary targets, the Chief Officer said the Council will go all out to plug the leakages on heads such as trade licence and revenue from signboards.
Councillor Damu Naik cautioned the Chief Officer to crack a whip against businessmen executing two different lease agreements to evade tax.
While terming the budget a cosmetic one, councillor Francis Joanes urged the Chair to make the necessary changes in the revenue side to make the budget more realistic.
