Outgoing Chairperson of Standing Committee, Vijay Zalke, trained guns on civic administration for short circuiting annual budget of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC). Giving vent to his pent-up feelings, Zalke, on Wednesday, claimed the stance of Municipal Commissioner in applying cut to sanctioned development proposals are bad in law and same needs to be reviewed.

 

Once the budget is approved by Standing Committee and later ratified by NMC’s House, the move to cut down allocation sets a wrong precedent and per se is illegal. With his tenure of one year as Chairperson of Standing Committee at fag end, Zalke said it defies logic that despite NMC having Rs 132 crore in its kitty plus Rs five crore interest thereon, budget allocation was slashed by 50 per cent. These funds are left over from Rs 200 crore sanctioned by then Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for affixing LED lights, about 14,000 in new areas.

 

The proposal was cleared by Standing Committee in year 2019 during December and one year down the line the project is still in limbo as administration has held-up the clearance. He was interacting with newspersons at Standing Committee auditorium at NMC’s headquarters after presiding over meeting with members. In fact, when Municipal Commissioner gave his assent to budget in month of November, corporators were excited that finally long overdue work in their wards would get going. Even Chief Accounts and Finance Officer (CAFO) too had issued a notification about taking-up budget proposals.

 

Still after that Municipal Commissioner applied 50 per cent cut to development projects is quite surprising. Further explaining his point Zalke mentioned that budget presented by him had no new development project to ensure no new liability is created on civic exchequer. Allocation was ensured for ongoing projects that was stalled for wants of funds like cement road works, chamber repair works and so on. In case administration felt that there is cash crunch at most they could have serialised the works as per priority and on priority items and taken them for implementation in that order. However, Municipal Commissioner straightway applied brakes to development momentum in city leaving citizens suffering. All the development proposal for which allocation was made in current year's budget had got administrative, technical and financial clearance.

 

Inspite of that Municipal Commissioner putting execution of projects on hold sounds illogical and to my knowledge damn illegal. Had administration wanted they could have put budgetary proposal for reappropriate before Standing Committee and a way out could have been found out. To a question Zalke said Municipal Commissioner it seems had acted under pressure from State Government as otherwise latter seemed positive in his approach. When grilled further as to statement from new Mayor Dayashankar Tiwari about clearing of budget proposal to tune of Rs 64 crore and 7th pay commission to civic staffers, the first time corporator said this is not so. Commissioner apart form giving clearance to 50 per cent utilisation also restored powers of Chairman, Standing Committee, but individual corporators ward fund was not fully cleared for taking-up pending works that is the major issue. He said administration is interested in only taking-up works that they think are importance but then who will fill-up potholes, plug the sewage leakage, change the damaged pipelines. The works under five heads taken-up by administration were not put up before Standing Committee.

 

NMC incurs expenditure in excess of receipts Realisation of receipts during the last financial year 2019-20 indicates that Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) was in red. But in case surplus from previous year is counted then there is surplus of nearly Rs 300 crore. During the Standing Committee meeting administration tabled balance sheet for the last year wherein receipts totalling Rs 2,119.97 crore while total expenditure was Rs 2,376.02 crore. However, during that year the civic budget had shown surplus of Rs 500 crore. Giving break-up of receipts, Vijay Zalke informed newspersons that Rs 355 crore was generated through Municipal Taxes, Rs 27.54 crore through Special Realisation, Rs 1,398.71 crores Government Grants and Miscellaneous Expenses Rs 188.34 crore plus Rs 123.94 crore Extraordinary Debit. As to expenditure General Administration and Collection charges. Rs 244 crores, Public Safety Rs 150.40 crore, Public Health and Convenience Rs 1753.07 crore, Public Inspection Solutions Rs 101.63 crore, Miscellaneous Rs 24.94 crore and under repayment of loan component Rs 101.66 crore.