Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 10, 2008
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Online edition of India's National Newspaper Saturday, May 10, 2008 ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version |
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Tamil Nadu
Tuticorin: A. K. Venkatasubramanian, a retired IAS officer and former Secretary to the Government of India, said that it was worrying to understand that a good chunk of education tax collected by various municipalities across the State as a percentage of property tax remained unutilised. Speaking at an awareness programme organised by Catalyst Trust, a non-governmental organisation here on Thursday evening, he pointed out that of the education cess corpus of Rs. 3 crore available with the Tuticorin municipality during 2004-05 fiscal, only Rs. one lakh was spent on maintenance of elementary schools run by the (municipal) administration, leaving Rs. 2.99 crore as closing balance. Similarly, during 2005-06 fiscal, only Rs. 2.17 lakh from the education tax corpus of Rs. 3.47 crore ( Rs. 2.99 crore scooped up from 2004-05 fiscal plus Rs 47.77 lakh collected during 2005-06) was spent to improve elementary education. He said that unutilised funds continued to pile next financial year too (2006-07), as the Tuticorin municipal administration spent just Rs. 15.82 lakh of the education tax corpus of Rs. 4.05 crore during that fiscal. “People should come forward to fight this indifference to elementary education despite availability of abundant funds,” he said. Francis Amal George, secretary, Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, Tuticorin branch, called upon the NGOs to study the critical gaps in infrastructure in the municipal elementary schools here and submit a report to municipal commissioner asking the administration to improve infrastructure accordingly using funds lying idle under education tax corpus. He also urged them to verify whether the municipal administration had utilised the unspent amount from the education tax corpus for any other purpose. “According to rules, two percent of the property tax collected will be transferred to the education tax corpus and the amount should not be mixed with the general fund,” he said. Fatima Babu, lecturer, St. Mary’s College, Tuticorin, said that few municipal schools were closed and some of the others were on the verge of closure, as the administration failed to make use of the funds collected as education tax wisely.
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