Mr. Ta. Special Representative, Nashik: The preparations of the revised and provisional budget of the Municipal Corporation for the fiscal year 2022-23 and 2023-24 are completed at the administrative level. Today, Friday, Administrator and Commissioner Dr. Chandrakant Pulkundwar will present the budget to the Standing Committee. Due to the non-receipt of expected revenues from BOT, urban planning, housing and water mains, the new budget is unlikely to provide sufficient funds for capital works. Meanwhile, proposals of nearly two and a half thousand crores for roads and capital works have come to the building department from citizens as well as various political parties in the city, but due to the responsibility of both last years, the amount is likely to be available for this department in the 50 crores, new corporators will be disappointed.
The then commissioner had submitted a draft budget of 2,227 crore to the Standing Committee for the financial year 2022-23. The standing committee added 339 crore 97 lakhs to this budget and this figure rose to 2,567 crore. However, the five-year term of the Municipal Corporation expired before the budget recommended by the Standing Committee was presented to the General Assembly. Therefore, the Commissioner’s draft budget has become final. Due to the blockage of tax collection due to the corona epidemic, the reduction in the collection of town planning fees and the failure to materialize the income development plan on BOT, there has been a deficit of about five hundred crores in the revenue of the corporation municipality. Therefore, there will be a big change in the revised budget. Due to the decline in revenue, the commissioner must also strive to balance expenditure and revenue in the new budget.
As there is no rule of people’s representatives in the municipal corporation, Commissioner Dr. Pulkundwar will present the budget to the standing committee on Friday. If there is a standing committee under the People’s Representative regime, it was traditional to present a new budget with the revised budget before February 28. However, since the preparation of the budget has not been completed this year, this tradition will be broken for the first time and the budget will be presented for the first time in March.
Requests for three thousand crores
On the one hand, there has been a decrease in the income of the municipality, on the other hand, there has been a pile of proposals for new work from former officials, corporators and citizens of the administrative regime. In the application submitted to the commissioner, the department claimed that only the construction department had received proposals worth three thousand crores for roads and capital works. On the other hand, since the road project at the time of the BJP resulted in wastage of nearly 700 crores, there is little chance of securing funds for new road works. Although there are requests for 3000 crores, it is likely that only 25 to 30 crores will be made available by the administrator of this department. So everyone’s eyes are on that budget now.
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