Civic bodies bereft of funds
By Gobind Thukral
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Dec 5 — Punjab seems to have given a quiet burial to the recommendations of the State Finance Commission (SFC). Consequently, the grand design of a third stratum of self-governance created under the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments lies shattered. Intriguingly, the Akali Dal which never tired of seeking total fiscal autonomy and an even greater degree of political autonomy has not provided any real autonomy either to the 137 municipal councils and corporations or to the 12,134 village-level local bodies.

What the government headed by the ardent votary of total autonomy, Mr Parkash Singh Badal, has provided to the state is just a pittance. Let the facts speak. The State Finance Commission constituted under an Act, gave its report in December 1995. It assigned a share in taxes, grants and other means for development for the next five years - till 2001. The only recommendation of the STF implemented by the government relates to 20 per cent sharing of some taxes - stamp duty, the Punjab motor vehicles tax, electricity duty, entertainment tax. Since land revenue was abolished, the panchayats lost that revenue in the summer of 1997.

For two years the Punjab Government paid just Rs 25.56 crore to urban and rural bodies against Rs 135 crore it should have paid. For five years, the share comes to Rs 538.51 crore. The state may end up paying just Rs 150 crore. Pittance indeed. This has robbed the municipal and panchayats bodies of any worthwhile development.

Some money was provided under the District Planning Boards. But this was from the general development pool.

The SFC had recommended that these bodies should get Rs 732.28 crore as share from taxes, Rs 500 crore as grants-in-aid during these five years. In addition, these bodies were to mobolise their own resources. Here too the government writ runs and does not permit any autonomy. Take the case of land revenue.

The Akali-BJP coalition government had promised that octroi would be abolished, but soon the Local Bodies Minister, Mr Balramji Das Tandon, discovered that this was not possible. Instead, the government introduced a new plan, collection of octroi by contractors. The recovery went up from Rs 550 crore to Rs 730 crore. But harassment by contractors and the political cost during the elections forced the government, always surviving on populist measures, to abandon the plain midway.

Now a Cabinet sub-committee on fiscal measures has left 137 fund-starved civic councils to fend for themselves. "We shall not recommend that the councils should charge for even economic services like water supply, sewerage and other benefits. Let them decide on their own and pay the political price", a member of this high-profile committee declared. In fact, the Punjab Government owes Rs 285 crore to the civic bodies, including Rs 65 crore it has received from the Centre.

The government which has failed to transfer any meaningful grant has, however, deprived the councils of house tax. The government has abolished it. Clearly, the Akali Dal which vehemently seeks autonomy from the Centre is not prepared to share the same with the people of the state, despite constitutional amendments.

Also, one major source, the shamlat, land (village common land) that provides some money to the panchayats is being exploited by powerful leaders. Against an annual market rent of Rs 10,000 per acre, the panchayats are being forced to lease it out at Rs 2,000 per acre.

And ask the Finance Minister, Capt Kanwaljit Singh, or Mr Tandon about the issue, pat comes the reply: "We do not have that kind of money to spare".

The government has sought large funds from the Finance Commission, 50 per cent from the central kitty. It has sought Rs 4,306 crore for the urban bodies and Rs 4483.48 crore for the panchayats for 2001-2005.

Mars lander still uncommunicative

PASADENA (California), Dec 5 (AP) — A two-hour window of opportunity for contact with the still-silent Mars Poler Lander spacecraft opened at 4.30 am GMT, but nothing was immediately received.

The spacecraft is programmed to automatically send signals using a different antenna today morning.

If the second antenna works, the transmission would first be detected by the Mars Global Surveyor satellite and relayed to the Earth.

Controllers say they have not exhausted all simple explanations for the silence, like a mispointed antenna or a computer reset. The spacecraft was in good shape and on course just before communications ended on Friday morning as expected before descent.

However, critics say the lander may have been in trouble even before it left the launch pad 11 months ago.

Attempts to detect signals from the spacecraft were to continue with a transmission window opening yesterday. It has not been heard from since Friday, when it began its fiery descent toward Mars.

"We have prepared for various scenarios, and we’re trying all the options, said Richard Cook the spacecraft’s project operations manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The September 23 loss of the Lander’s $ 125 million sibling spacecraft have led the NASA investigators to determine that engineers failed to convert data into metrics in a critical navigation program, causing the satellite to fly far too close to Mars. It’s believed to have burned up in the atmosphere it was to study.

The 43-page report released on November 10 did not stop with the metric mix-up, however. It faulted navigators for taking short cuts and not knowing enough about the Lander.

Investigators also reported that questions about the orbiter’s trajectory raised by navigators were not relayed to other groups within the project, including the spacecraft’s builders at Lockheed Martin Astronautics in Colorado.

The Polar Lander’s mission also came under unprecedented scrutiny because the same organisations and people who flew the orbiter were behind the latest mission as well.

NASA Administrator Dan Goldin said on Friday the agency would stick to its approach.

If the Mars Lander is lost forever, the momentum to study the planet may be diminished, said Robert Zubrin, President of the Mars Society and author of several books supporting exploration of the Red Planet.

The Lander and orbiter that were to have explored climate history and search for water this year are part of a Red Planet campaign that launches an orbiter and lander every 26 months, when the orbits of Mars and Earth are properly aligned.