Panchkula, April 1
It is the beginning of the financial year, but the Municipal Council (MC) here has no money — not even for its day-to-day expenses like buying petrol for vehicles, paying telephone bills, power bills or salaries of its employees.
The current political situation- when the MC President, Mrs Seema Chaudhary, belonging to Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), is facing a no-confidence motion after many of her councillors joined the Congress camp — is mainly responsible for the on- going financial crisis. Officials in the MC say that they have now sought permission from the Commissioner, Ambala Range, for release of five per cent to 10 per cent of the amount from the establishment fund of the MC, so as to cover the emergency expenses.
This is the second time since October 2004 that MC has demanded money from its corpus. Officials say that the money allotted in January (Rs 50 lakh) was exhausted by mid March, and now the MC coffers are again empty. The administration had granted this money to MC from its Establishment Fund for carrying out sanitation works. The MC had exhausted its entire budget for the year 2004-05, by September 2004, and submitted a supplementary budget of Rs 6 crore to the administration. The MC had reportedly spent Rs 1.16 crore in excess till October 2004 on development of parks, laying of metaled roads and cement concrete roads and sanitation.
The administration, while pulling up the MC for not getting the budget passed from the House, had granted the money on the condition that the work be monitored by Executive Officer. He was asked to submit a report on the sanitation services to the administration, before releasing any payment. No General House meeting of the MC was held after June 2004. Though the President, Mrs Seema Chaudhary had convened a meeting in October for getting the supplementary budget passed, the meeting could not be held after the Congress councillors walked out and the quorum of the House was incomplete.
Now, Mrs Chaudhary called a budget meeting of the General House of MC on March 17. But with the 18 Congress and three BJP councillors moving a no-confidence motion against her, the meeting was cancelled, and budget for the financial year 2005-06 could not be passed. With the MC House meeting on no- confidence motion now being deferred till April 12 today, the fiscal crisis in the MC is likely to continue. Officials say that only if an officer is appointed as interim President, and calls a special budget meeting can the crisis be solved.
As a result the development works and maintenance of sanitation and street lights in sectors falling within MC limits has taken a beating. Defunct street lights and insanitary conditions are prevalent everywhere. The contract for street light maintenance ended in February, and the minor maintenance work (only switching on and off) is being done by the MC staff. Though the term of sanitation contract has been extended till April 9, the insanitary conditions and piles of garbage can be seen everywhere.
