A Right To Information (RTI) petition disposed of by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) last week has disclosed that the State government did not release a rupee to the civic body so far this financial year though ₹ 821.98 crore was allocated for the purpose this year.
The petitioner, M. Srinivas, city secretary of CPI (M), had sought details of money released by the government to GHMC out of the budget allocation in 2016-17 and 2017-18. He specifically wanted to know money released to GHMC towards professional tax, motor vehicle tax, property tax on government buildings, entertainment tax and stamp duty and 14th Finance Commission funds in 2016-17.
The Chief Financial Officer of GHMC, in his reply, noted that the arrears on five taxes was ₹ 300.20 crore while ₹ 279.63 crore was pending from the finance commission. There was no release at all out of the allocation of ₹ 821.98 crore in 2017-18.
Chief Secretary S.P. Singh, who reviewed the position with officials on Tuesday told The Hindu that the money will be released to GHMC. The delay was on account of some accounting issues which was being sorted out.
The information put out by the CFO said a budget provision of ₹ 240 crore was made towards stamp duty but only ₹ 40 crore was released. The entire allocation of ₹ 41.25 crore towards professional tax, ₹ 0.5 crore towards motor vehicle tax and ₹ 24.20 crore towards property tax on government buildings was pending. Only ₹ 11.04 crore of the budgeted ₹ 45.29 crore for entertainment tax was released.
Notwithstanding the poor releases, the government again made huge allocations on the above heads but the GHMC was not given anything in 2017-18. In addition,₹ 377.35 crore each was provided for improvement of roads and Musi river front development. The money is part of the ₹ 821.98 crore budgeted this year.
