PANAJI: The Corporation of City of Panaji (CCP), on Friday, passed Rs 42.37-crore budget for the financial year 2017-18, having a deficit Rs 5.34 crore.
The City Mayor Surendra Furtado presented the budget, attributing the deficit to the payment of salaries, that accounts for a major chunk of corporation’s expenses at Rs 20.64 crore and Rs 5.12 crore as daily wages.
The other expenses include honorarium of Rs 34 lakh, given to Mayor and councillors, electricity and water bills of Rs 24.70 lakh, legal fees of Rs 15 lakh and consultancy fees for various projects amounting to Rs 67 lakh.
The budget has a provision of Rs 5 crore for carrying out development works in various wards and also a provision of Rs 80 lakh, with Rs 50 lakh for electricity maintenance work in all the wards, Rs 10 lakh for public works committee and Rs 20 lakh for market maintenance.
“The budget would be a surplus once the government provides a grant of Rs 9.11 crore,” said the Mayor.
In order to rake in more revenue, the CCP has increased annual sanitation tax or garbage tax on residential units from Rs 365 to Rs 500 while the same tax on small offices is reduced from Rs 500 to Rs 200.
Further, the fee for the issuance of duplicate house tax receipt is reduced from Rs 500 to Rs 100.
Annual fee for mobile towers has been hiked to Rs 1 lakh with 10 per cent annual increment.
Monthly garbage collection fee from handcarts has been revised from Rs 300 to Rs 500, and licence renewal fee has been hiked to Rs 2,000, which was earlier Rs 1,000.
Moreover, the CCP hiked by 50 per cent the sopo fee from Rs 10 to Rs 15, and there is three time increment in fee for putting up stalls in fairs, from Rs 20 per square metres to Rs 60 per square metres.
It took almost two hours to start with the budget presentation as the councillors from both the panel raised various issues.
of pay parking contractors, municipal market, and illegal hawkers, and demanded vigilance enquiry into irregularities in dry waste collection.
Later, the budget was passed without any objections
Some councillors pleaded to curb the mushrooming of illegal advertisement boards and make ward-wise recovery with proper display of licence number or hologram on the advertisement boards.
The opposition councillors Menino da Cruz and Rupesh Halarnkar stressed that while the revenue through advertisements is an important source of income for the CCP, at present, the civic body is losing revenue due to the illegal advertisement boards.
The CCP resolved to put hologram – a special identification mark with licence number on all those advertisement boards placed outside commercial establishments.
The budget projects Rs 2.50 crore signboard licence fee as against Rs 1.60 crore fee of the previous year.
While drawing attention to ‘the non-recovery of an outstanding amount of Rs 68 lakh as licence renewal fee from a city-based Sierra Gold Heights Pvt Ltd, a part of Deltin Group,’ councillor from the ruling panel Dinesh Salgaonkar demanded immediate recovery with action against erring official.
Councilor Uday Madkaikar brought to the notice of the council ‘illegal operation of Jack and Jones showroom along M G Road.’