With its revenue having been hit by the devastating Hudhud, GVMC is looking for immediate assistance of Rs.10 crore to Rs.15 crore from the State government.
Dipping into its reserves it has been able to meet the salary bill of Rs.8 crore and Rs.5 crore towards electricity, besides GPF, insurance etc and also pay some advance to the heavy machinery deployed from all over the State and expenses for massive debris clearing work. About Rs.5 crore has been spent on the immediate relief work.
It needs up to Rs.35 crore a month to meet its financial commitments. Of the monthly revenue, about Rs.10 crore comes from bulk water supply and Rs.10 crore from Town Planning fee. However, on both fronts this month so far the receipts are not considerable, say sources. Property tax payments come only in the second half of the month.
To shore up revenue, GVMC plans to approach high property tax payers to remit the tax since issuing demand notices may take time.
So far the government has not released any funds, say sources.
During the past two months bills have not been paid to contractors and only diesel is being provided to get contingency works done after cyclone.
The total loss estimated by GVMC is a whopping Rs.2,839 crore, including damage to 38,000 houses and municipal schools number a few hundred is estimated at Rs.1643 crore.
The damage to roads, temporary and permanent and restoration cost of 2,089 km is put at Rs.621 crore, for open and underground drainage Rs.129 crore, water works including pumpsets Rs.370.9 crore and streetlighting Rs. 40 crore.
To restore water supply, one of the key relief components sought after by everyone, hired generators were stationed at 97 places and as power restored their services dispensed with.
Taking advantage of the crisis unleashed by Hudhud and leveraging a power conservation agreement reached with the Central Government, the government took a snap decision to switch over to LED streetlighting. To cover the entire city replacing 90,000 lights it will take a month.
