Fund crunch throttles development work

HOW THEY STACK UP
Fund crunch throttles development work
The Times of India

Bangalore: A year shy of a decade since the seven CMCs came into being, infrastructure is still a shambles. Even some years ago, 24-hour water supply was unheard of. A perennial plaintive cry is ‘lack of funds’.

Funded by the State Finance Commissions for salaries and 11th Finance Commission for package and development works, the civic authorities say the fund crunch is acute because, unlike the city, they source revenue mainly from property tax. But try getting into the source of revenue collections and its spending, it’s hard to find logical answers.

The annual budgetary outlay in every CMC stands at Rs 30 crore approximately. Contrast this with the BCC’s Rs 1,500 crore for 2005-06: this for all 100 wards, health, advertisements, flyovers, parks. And CMC’s Rs 30-crore allocation is for its 30 wards, parks, roads, health in the area typically with a 2-3 lakh population. Each CMC ward gets Rs 25-lakh grant and BCC’s gets Rs 100 crore.

Bommanahalli CMC commissioner Uday Shankar says: “After octroi was abolished, we have to depend heavily on funds released by 11th Finance Commission. Our corporators wield all powers that their BCC counterparts enjoy but our jurisdiction is less and the money is much less.’’

The CMCs’ revenue source is restricted to property tax, trade licence, building licence fees, development charges and surcharge duties.

So, what happens to the ‘development charges’ collected dutifully? Where’s the development? “The CM has sanctioned a Rs 85-crore project for water supply and sanitation. Each municipality has to pay 10 per cent for it,’’ adds Uday Shankar. It is for the first time that CMCs are getting Cauvery water supply under the megacity project.

“We are lagging behind in tax collection,’’ admits an official. At the Mahadevapura CMC, “own source of revenue’’ stands at Rs 15 crore. Reasons commissioner Chikka Venkatappa: “There are not sufficient engineering staff; a junior engineer gets eight wards. Plus, we face problems because of a lot of illegal layouts that crop up overnight. We’re powerless and can’t take action.’’ Yet another official says more than half the 75,000 khata sites are illegal.

The Mahadevapura CMC grossed Rs 7 crore from property tax collected through SAS. Why hasn’t that translated into roads, parks, health centres, storm water drains?