Coimbatore Corporation’s Finance and Taxation Committee Chairman R. Prabhakaran on Friday presented a deficit budget with very few new announcements.
His statement of accounts for 2014 -15 says that the Coimbatore Corporation will have a deficit of Rs. 28.81 crore. And, that is a 37.32 per cent increase in deficit.
The deficit means that the Corporation will have less money in its pocket to spend on schemes and will be forced to depend on financial assistance from the State and Central Governments to fund its projects.
A couple of years ago, the Corporation had a surplus budget.
Mr. Prabhakaran said the Corporation hoped to make good the deficit by implementing a number of revenue augmentation schemes. But in his announcements, there was no clue as to how the Corporation would go about increasing the revenue.
The announcements had details about where the Corporation money would go, though, like spending on tablet computing devices for 100 Councillors at Rs. 30 lakh, computer and data card at 14 middle and 41 primary schools at Rs. 50 lakh, tablet computing devices for urban health nurses at Rs. 25 lakh, a synthetic turf at the Corporation school in R.S. Puram at Rs. 50 lakh, training students in chess at Rs. 20 lakh and Rs. 10 lakh to provide diaries to students.
He also said that the Corporation would spend Rs. 20 lakh on higher secondary students by giving them scientific calculators, Rs. 75 lakh to establish five laboratories, Rs. 10 lakh to reward residents, residents’ associations and other establishments for their environment conservation efforts and much more.
Mr. Prabhakaran made a few more announcements that the Corporation was already implementing or had decided to implement.
These announcements also found a mention in the Mayor’s address.
Recalling announcements already made, Mr. Velusamy said that the Corporation proposed to shift the omni bus stand from the Sathyamangalam Road to a 10.38-acre plot in Neelambur, replace 37,000 of the 44,000 street lights in the old city areas of 60 wards with energy-efficient ones, spend Rs. 2 crore to install solar panels on buildings belonging to the Corporation, continue the grievance camp in the ensuing financial year, seek Central Government funds for taking up storm water drain in added areas and allocate Rs. 2 crore towards the project cost as its share and build more houses for Corporation staff.
He said that the 754 houses were inadequate to meet the demands of the 2,937 staff.
The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Councillors and a few others who took part in the debate held in the afternoon said that they were thankful to the civic body administration for a good budget.
