Mohali MC proposes Rs 17-cr surplus Budget
Sanjay Bumbroo
Tribune News Service
Mohali, February 10
The Mohali Municipal Corporation (MC) has proposed a surplus Budget of Rs 17 crore for the 2020-21 fiscal.
The MC has included Rs 100 crore in its income to be taken from GMADA for park maintenance in the Rs 286.72-crore Budget. The MC has shown Rs 251.66-crore expenditure in the Budget.
A special MC House meeting will be held on February 12 for discussion and approval of the proposed Budget. The MC had been proposing deficit budget for the past four years.
MC Mayor Kulwant Singh said they had proposed Rs 286.72 crore income against Rs 251.66 crore expenditure with Rs 17.06 crore surplus Budget. He said they had included Rs 100 crore, which was to be recovered from GMADA for maintenance of various parks.
MC Commissioner Kamal Kumar Garg said they would focus on balancing the fiscal deficit by increasing the collection from various factors such as building application fee, licence fee and tehbazari. He said they could give them a boost of around Rs 10 crore nearly balancing the fiscal deficit.
Garg said the MC was poised to get Rs 100 crore from GMADA, Rs 66 crore from Punjab Municipal Funds, Rs 28 crore from property tax as major income factors in the Rs 286.72 crore Budget.
The primary source of income, property tax of the MC for the 2020-21 financial year, has been increased by Rs 3 crore at an estimated collection of Rs 28 crore, which during the 2019-20 fiscal was decreased by Rs 2.5 crore at Rs 25 crore. In 2018-19, the property tax income was estimated at Rs 19 crore, but was revised to Rs 27.5 crore, with a slight hike of Rs 2 crore from the previous Budget of 2017-18 estimated at Rs 17 crore.
In the proposed Budget, additional excise duty has been decreased to Rs 3 crore from Rs 8 crore in 2019-20, rent and tehbazari fee income worth Rs 60 lakh, advertisement tax revenue of around Rs 12 crore, water supply and sewerage income generation has not been revised and proposed similar to the last fiscal of Rs 1.30 crore, building application fee has been proposed at Rs 70 lakh, Rs 40 lakh surplus as compared with the last fiscal of Rs 30 lakh and licence fee income of Rs 40 lakh generated during the last fiscal is now proposed at Rs 45 lakh.
In 2019-20, the civic body had proposed Rs 22.2 crore deficit Budget and in 2018, the MC had passed Rs 128 crore annual Budget showing Rs 15 crore deficit for the 2018-19 fiscal. The House had passed Rs 128.17 crore expenditure against the income of Rs 112.93 crore.
However, in the 2018-19 fiscal, the MC later managed to reduce the deficit to half by increasing the income to Rs 117.02 crore and reduce the expenditure to Rs 124.87 crore from proposed Rs 128.17 crore, decreasing the deficit to Rs 7.85 crore from proposed Rs 15 crore. In 2017, the MC had passed the annual Budget with estimated expenditure of Rs 138.50 crore against projected income of Rs 117.50 crore for the 2017-18 fiscal making it a deficit of Rs 21 crore.
