The city Corporation will provide one percent concession on property tax for households installed with source level solid waste treatment plants, city Mayor K. Chandrika said here on Monday.
Talking to media persons after the presentation of Corporation budget for the financial year 2012-13 Ms Chandrika said that the move is intended to encourage installation of decentralised waste management systems in city residences.
“Waste management is the biggest challenge faced by the city today. Decentralised waste management is the need of the hour. The concession on property tax will be an encouragement for people to set up source level waste treatment units in their houses,” she said.
The Corporation has set apart Rs. 1crore for source level waste management project in its budget for the next fiscal. Apart from this another Rs. 1 crore has been set apart for setting up mini composting units in different parts of the city to process garbage collected from public places and markets.
Deputy mayor G. Happykumar on Monday presented the Rs 12.04 crore surplus budget which shows a total revenue of Rs 735.45 crores and total expenditure of Rs 723.41 crores. Infrastructure development has been given the highest priority in the budget with an allocation of around Rs 139.2 crores in this sector.
An outlay of Rs 50 crore has been made for EMS Housing Scheme while Rs 5 crore has been made for slum improvement and slum housing projects. An amount of Rs 1 crore has been set apart for developing eco-friendly tourism initiatives in main tourist spots in the city. Besides this an outlay of Rs 2 crore has been made for conservation of water bodies in the city.
‘Café Ananthapuri’ chain of restaurants to be set up at a cost of Rs 50 lakh is another unique initiative proposed in the budget.
‘Drisya’ a Rs 25 lakh scheme for conducting vacation time film festivals for higher secondary students, Rs 10 lakh `Vayana’ library strengthening programme and Rs 15 lakh ‘Nanma’ programme for providing academic support for economically and socially backward students are some of the new proposals in the education sector.
A Rs 15 lakh scheme titled ‘Jeevaraktham’ for conducting blood donation camps and awareness programmes and ‘Sahayahastham’ scheme for differently-abled with an outlay of Rs 10 lakh are among the projects proposed in the health and social welfare sectors, respectively. A Rs 3 lakh medical insurance scheme for Corporation councillors has also been proposed.
