Blow to Chandigarh MC: Governor puts foot down, says no to additional funds

In a major blow to the cash-strapped Chandigarh Municipal Corporation (MC), the Punjab governor and UT administrator Gulab Chand Kataria on Thursday refused to release any ‘special grant’ to the civic body at present, making it difficult for the MC to resume the development works across the city.
While holding a review meeting of the MC and other departments of the Chandigarh administration over the budgetary concerns, the governor directed the civic body to “cut down on annual expenses, increase revenue from own sources, and strategise to improve fiscal health.” Besides, the UT administration also turned down mayor Kuldeep Kumar Dhalor’s proposal of transferring the registration and license authority (RLA) department to the MC.
At present, the civic body is grappling with a severe financial crunch forcing it to halt all development-related works across the city since May this year. For the MC, the financial crisis is so serious that it has even put the already long-pending road carpeting work on hold and uncertainty looms over release of salaries for the staff for the coming months.
“For the past few months, we have been requesting the administrator to release an immediate special grant of ₹200 crore to resume development works in the city. However, no grant was announced on Thursday. The Chandigarh MC has only ‘service provider’ departments and no ‘revenue generating departments’. We requested the UT to transfer RLA to the MC as the MC maintains 2000 km roads whereas UT maintains 210 km roads, but our request was denied. In Indore, revenue generating departments like electricity and transport are managed by the MC which helps them in great revenue generation and expenditure. Even though the Delhi high commission had recommended annual electricity duty to be given to the MC, no money is being paid to us,” said mayor Dhalor after attending the meeting.
“The new MC commissioner, Amit Kumar, and other MC officials have been directed to chalk out a detailed plan on how to increase MC’s own revenue generation. This includes recovery of arrears from various sources like pending property tax bills, water bills, planning a new advertisement policy and other ways,” said sources, adding that the governor has asked the commissioner to strategise and meet again and the UT will think on how they can help.
Cut expenses, MC told
As per officials present at the meeting, UT adviser Rajeev Verma asked the MC officials to cut down on their expenses, which include a whopping sum of salaries issued to contractual staff.
As per MC’s official figures, the MC spent a total of ₹493 crore till September 30, and of it, ₹145 crore was spent on salaries of regular staff and ₹147 crore were spent on wages of the contractual staff. Only ₹59 crore was spent on capital works in the first six months of the fiscal year, MC stats revealed.
“The UT adviser questioned the MC as to why hundreds of contractual workers are hired when regular posts are lying vacant. Why the MC is spending more on contractual staff than on regular employees,” the officers who attended the meeting said.
The Chandigarh administration has earmarked ₹560 crore as grant-in-aid against the demand of ₹1,651.75 crore for the current financial year. So far, the MC has already received ₹387 crore grant. Besides, the MC had estimated to generate revenue worth ₹350 crore from its own sources in this financial year. But from April 1 to September 30, MC could generate only ₹173.25 crore.