Civic budget caught in crossfire

Civic budget caught in crossfire
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: The BMP and the government don’t see eye to eye on many issues, and the civic budget for 2006-07 is likely to give rise to a low intensity war.

While Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy is mounting pressure on officials to perform, his government has yet to okay the BMP budget. Apparently the government is not happy with the modifications proposed to the budget placed before the council on March 24 by the chairperson of the BMP standing committee on taxation and finance, Lalitha Sreenivasgowda.

Health minister R Ashok, who is in charge of Bangalore Urban district, told this paper that the consequent modifications made by the council were not acceptable.

“During pre-budget deliberations I had told the BMP to come up with a realistic budget. Even then the civic body proposed a budget beyond its means. How can the BMP justify mayoral grants of Rs 30 crore? It never went beyond Rs 10 crore. There are many anomalies like that,” he said.

The BMP first proposed a budget with an outlay of Rs 1,800 crore with Rs 20 crore mayoral grants and Rs 1.5 crore ward grants. It also proposed to ban hoardings in the city. The ban followed observations made by the T and F panel on irregularities in hoarding management.

But later the BMP weakened its stand and mayor Mumtaz Begum appointed a committee under her to examine the matter.

The committee had no expert and the chairperson of T and F committee was kept out of the whole issue.

Further, the discretionary grants were increased. The mayoral grant was increased to Rs 30 crore, MLA grants to Rs 6 crore each, deputy mayoral grants to Rs 5 crore, and the councillors were given Rs 2 crore each.

In Stark contrast, the mayor of Hyderabad who has tenure of five years has a discretionary grant of just Rs 50 lakh for the entire tenure. But the leader of the ruling party H Ravindra said the council had acted within its constitutional limits and the government could take its decision.