Finances of Lahore municipality

THE report of the committee appointed by the local government in January 1925 to examine the financial position of the Municipal Committee, Lahore, is an interesting document and deals exhaustively with the receipts and expenditure of the municipality as well as various expensive schemes contemplated to improve its water supply, drainage, roads and other services. The Committee of Enquiry consisted of the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner, Lahore; Secretary, Punjab Finance Department; Examiner, Local Fund Accounts; and the president of the municipality. The terms of reference were: (1) What are the requirements of the Municipal Committee if it is to bring its essential services up to a reasonable standard of efficiency and maintain them at that standard? (2) To what extent are those requirements met or could be met from the committee’s existing resources if unnecessary expenditure were cut down and to what extent do the existing resources require to be or are capable of being supplemented by: (a) Increasing the existing taxation, or (b) Introducing fresh taxation, or (c) Exploiting other sources of income, or (d) By raising a loan or loans; (3) If the requirements of the committee cannot be met by these methods, how can the existing resources by applied so as to produce the best, though limited, results? A Langley, who, as Commissioner of Lahore and president of the committee, took great pains to arrange the vast array of facts and figures, deserves credit for the completeness and lucidity of the report, which he could not sign owing to his having left the division at the time.