ProMASS News
Agartala, June 25, 2019: Agartala Municipal Corporation (AMC) placed its Rs 208 crore 5 lakh 81 thousand Budget proposals for 2019-20 today. Presenting the budget, Mayor of AMC, Prafulla Jit Sinha said, with Receipts proposed to be Rs 207 crore 6 lakh 50 thousand, deficit estimated to be Rs 99 lakh 31 thousand. He said, AMC has focused on development as well as on garbage collection.
Referring to Budget deficit, the Mayor said that AMC would focus on augmenting revenue collection for meeting the extra expenses.
“The deficit is proposed to be covered through increased coverage / arrear of property tax, trade licenses etc. Special recovery camps will be organized for this – rather than increasing the direct tax”, he said.
“Revenue Income in 2018-19 was Rs 229 crore 3 lakh 97 thousand. All out, efforts shall be carried out at various levels to augment the revenue collection by exploring all possible means in the FY 2019-20. Annual target of total Revenue collection was set at Rs 439 crore 5 lakh 50 thousand”, Prafulla Jit Sinha said.
AMC slashed the Budget size compared to previous year. Commenting on slashing Budget size, Prafulla Jit Sinha said, in previous year (2018-19), expenditure was pegged at around Rs 218 crore while, it is Rs 208 crore 5 lakh 81 thousand in 2019-20. However, the cut in expenditure will not affect development”, he asserted.
Explaining reason behind reducing size of the Budget, Sinha said, AMC would implement several projects earlier – and now, the State Government will implement those. This resulted in cut in expenditure.
Among different sectors, AMC is focusing on Street lighting and water supply. Sinha mentioned that total 34200 LED lights were installed by EESL and the payment to be made to EESL is one of the major components of expenditure in 2019-20 Budget estimates. “For electric division of AMC, altogether Rs 103 crore were earmarked in 2019-20 Budget”, Sinha said.
On water supply, the Mayor said, The Water Treatment Plants under ADB project are running in Central, South and East Zone to provide purified water to people. Works in North Zone are 90 per cent completed. “Total 521 km water pipe line was laid and 9000 number of houses were connected to newly laid pipe lines – and 31000 houses are to connected within March 2020”, Sinha said.
He said, discussions and debates on Budget 2019-20 proposals will be held on June 29.
