GVMC budgets reduced to farce: CPM

Visakhapatnam: The budgets presented by the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation year after year, were reduced to a farce, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) corporator and party floor leader in the GVMC, Dr. B. Gangarao, has observed. Talking to media persons here on Friday, he referred to the Rs.4061.9 crore budget proposed for the year […]

Visakhapatnam: The budgets presented by the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation year after year, were reduced to a farce, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) corporator and party floor leader in the GVMC, Dr. B. Gangarao, has observed.

Talking to media persons here on Friday, he referred to the Rs.4061.9 crore budget proposed for the year 2022-23 and revenue estimates of Rs.3885.18 crore aiming to achieve a surplus of Rs.258.08 crore and said it was nothing but a jugglery of figures. The GVMC was presenting figures double its actual revenue and cheated the public, he alleged, and added that it diverted the funds earmarked for slum development, education, library cess, SC and ST development to other activities.

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“We feel that this budget will not help development or the public in any manner. They have proposed to collect Rs.545 crore under property tax, Rs.55 crore for garbage collection, Rs.386 crore as water charges, Rs.291 crore through building plans and fees, and Rs.20 crore under trade licenses. They will certainly burden the common man,” the CPM leader pointed out.

Reeling out figures, he said that the GVMC which proposed a Rs.3292.96 crore budget in the year 2018-19, had actually spent only Rs.1665.36 crore. In the year 2019-20, against Rs.3740.65 crore, it had spent only Rs. 1198.56 crore, and during 2020-21, it had proposed Rs.4044.95 crore but the actual expenditure was pegged at Rs.808.89 crore, he stated.

On top of it, the GVMC was being pushed into a debt trap–proposing to take loans at the rate of Rs.100 crore last year and this year, he said. Also, this year’s budget proposed to repay Rs.68 crore towards loans and interest. Last year, in the year before last, the payments made under this head were Rs.68 crore and Rs.48 crore respectively, he noted, and strongly opposed taking loans.

Dr. Gangarao alleged that there were attempts to mortgage GVMC lands for a Rs.200 crore loan for executing Smart City projects and said that most of these projects were not useful for the people in the city.

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