Mounting arrears pushing BMP into fund crunch?

Mounting arrears pushing BMP into fund crunch?
Deccan HErald

Till September, no new development projects can take off in the city. A step taken to bail out the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) from a severe fund crunch, which pushed the Mayor and the BMP Commissioner to seek a Rs-100-crore grant from the state government.

Ironically, the BMP seems to have done little to fill its coffers. The pending bills (arrears) of the advertising taxes have only grown longer. Interestingly, the government organisations are found to be major defaulters.

“The Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) has a pending bill for Rs 1.30 crore. This is not an isolated case as several other departments are still to pay. I wonder why the BMP officials are going slow on these cases,” BJP leader A H Basavaraju asks.

“The situation is so precarious that the contractors haven’t been paid their bills for the last seven months for want of funds.

In fact, the BMP has taken no action against illegal hoarding that are causing a serious loss of revenue,” alleged Basavaraju, adding that the ruling party was turning a blind eye to the illegal hoardings menace.

However, the new Hoarding Sub-Committee has not arrived at any decision even after two months.

“We will issue fresh licenses to hoardings after June 30, when the term for the hoardings expire,” said Mayor Mumtaz Begum.

Meanwhile, the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike Council is hoping to approve an advertisement bylaw with modifications in hoarding specification, location of display, pricing slab among others.

“The arrears for advertising tax has to be collected by both from the government organisations like BMTC, KSRTC, Railway and some private cellphone companies like Hutch, Airtel, Tata Indicom and Nokia,” appealed Basavaraju.

BMTC BUS ADS

*No of advertisers-22

*No of buses - 561

*Tax paid – Rs 4 lakh

*Arrears – Rs 1.30 crore