Municipal Corp in Odisha capital approves Rs 450 cr budget

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Feb 28:

Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Friday approved a budget of Rs 450 for the financial year 2015-16 and will soon send it to the Odisha government for its approval.

The BMC plans to spend 25 percent of the budget, i.e. Rs 108 crores, in development and infrastructure. Another 23 percent would be spent for the urban poor. It would spend 16 percent, i.e. Rs 72 crores for property acquisition, 10 percent, i.e. Rs 45 crores for cleanliness of the city and 12 percent for the day to day operations and salaries of employees.

The budget estimates an income of Rs 468 crores.  While 302 crores, i.e. 65% of this amount would come from different grants for schemes of the State and Union Governments, 17 percent, i.e. Rs 78 crores, of the budget would come from octroi grants of the State Government. It also expects to receive Rs 53 crores from tax.

“The draft budget was issued to all corporators in a meeting last month. They gave their suggestions in the meeting held today and the budget was approved without any changes. It would be sent to the government for approval soon,” said Mayor of BMC Anant Narayan Jena.

The council meeting agreed on spending Rs 70 Lakh every year for developmental work in every ward in order to solve the basic issues in infrastructure.

It was also informed in the meeting that the State Government had approved the resolution passed in the meeting held in September 2014 to collect users’ fees for various services.  The collections would start from March 1, 2015, said Mayor Jena.

While two corporators wanted to know how the BMC is spending the 2 percent peripheral development fee BMC takes from builders while giving NOC for building apartments in the city and why is it not being spent in the area of the apartment, the Mayor and Commissioner assured councillors to discuss further on it and take action as required.