GHMC puts govt in the dock

​Hyderabad: The decision of the State government earlier this year to waive off property tax is costing the Corporation dearly. Such is the state of affairs that the GHMC Commissioner, in a spontaneous decision, instructed zonal commissioners to collect Rs 65 crore in a week lest the salaries would not be paid.

The Corporation officials claim that the State government’s decisions have increased the expenditure by Rs 6,000 crore for the self sufficient Corporation. According to the GHMC officials, the State government decision to waive off penal amounts during the last financial year had resulted in about Rs 300 crore loss and decrease of property tax from Rs 1,200 to Rs 101 for 4.5 lakh residents incurred loss of about Rs 100 crore. They said that the State government did not sanction Rs 500 crore, which had been released from the 13th and 14th Finance Commissions.

The sources said that the government had not granted the Rs 300 crore loss it suffered, which the Corporation had somehow generated through entertainment tax and other means. Besides this, the Corporation had been paying 15 per cent of the total property tax collected to Water Board, apart from paying Rs 353 crore to the city RTC so far, they said.

A senior GHMC official told ‘The Hans India’ that the decisions of the State government had put the GHMC into deep financial crisis. He said that the Corporation was not in a position to pay salaries and take up the regular maintenance works. Despite this, the city RTC had been demanding Rs 290 crore from the Corporation towards its maintenance.

Also, the salaries of the Water Board officials had been increased by Rs 80 crore this financial year, he said. The official said that the Corporation, in order to overcome financial crises, utilised Rs 800 crore worth fixed deposits. Further, the official said the revenues of the Corporation decreased from Rs 3,149.50 crore in 2014-15 to Rs 2,500.57 crore in 2015-16, while the expenditure increased from Rs 2,832.31 crore (2014-15) to Rs 3,072.25 crore (2015-16) and there would at least Rs 6,000 crore increase in Expenditure during the next financial year 2017-18.

To overcome this financial crisis, the GHMC Commissioner had set monthly targets to all ZCs and DCs, he said. “During the last month, the Commissioner had asked the ZCs and DCs to collect Rs 35 crore and this month he has asked them to collect Rs 65 crore”, the official said.

The GHMC official further stated that the engineering wing officials had already received instructions from the State government to delay the progress of the projects. He said that some of the major projects, including Strategic Road Development Plan (SRDP) and construction of about one lakh 2BHK houses for the urban poor would be delayed until the Corporation became self sufficient with the help of the State government.

He said that financial situation was in such a bad condition that it was yet to allocate Rs 2 crore development funds to its Corporators and Rs 50 crore to the Mayor and Deputy Mayor Development Fund. “Fearing their political bosses, the Corporators have been mounting pressure on us to release the development funds but we are in such deep financial crisis that we cannot pay salaries to our employees after two months,” he said.