Corpn. budget to focus onsteps to increase revenues

Stress on participatory budgeting by involving public

The city Corporation’s annual budget for the financial year 2019-20, to be presented in the council on Monday, might be short of big announcements, as the focus this year will be on completing all the major ongoing projects. The focus on participatory budgeting, by involving the public in the preparation of the budget will be extended to the implementation of various developmental projects, say Corporation sources.

“We are at the key stages of implementation of various major projects, especially the centrally-funded ones like AMRUT and PMAY -LIFE, all of which are partially funded by the Corporation from its own fund too. So, we will need to set aside a large amount of our financial resources for this purpose. As this council has only two more years in its tenure, the focus will be on making considerable gains in the implementation of these big projects,” said a source.

The local body is in dire need of stepping up its revenue collection mechanism, as it needs to find money to contribute its share in the major projects. For constructing houses under the LIFE project alone, for those owning land, the Corporation has to set aside ₹155 crore from its own fund.

Revenue collection

“The Corporation has been taking several steps to improve its revenue collection over the past three years. Some of it has borne fruit this year, as we have witnessed a major jump in revenue, due to tax revisions and increase in advertisement revenues. We are looking at methods to increase revenues from existing sources, by streamlining collection, without further burdening the people. Without that, the developmental activities cannot go ahead smoothly,” said the source.

Infrastructure

The focus of the budget will be equally on infrastructural projects and in social welfare. As part of the participatory budgeting initiative, more than 7,000 suggestions have been received. Some of these have been reportedly incorporated into the budget.

“Participatory budgeting could not be taken up in a complete sense this year as we started it late. We have been able to get suggestions from the public only. From next year, we will have stakeholder consultations, as suggestions from experts also need to be incorporated,” said the source.