Mumbai: While current taxes have not been filed and neither have new taxes been introduced in the 2017-18 budget, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has decided to take some drastic measures to curb unnecessary expenditure. This has followed due to the ambiguity over the share of Goods and Services Tax after the abolition of octroi system.
This year, the octroi collections have amounted to over Rs 7000 crore. According to civic officials, the GST is expected to roll out by July 1. Accordingly, the BMC has estimated the gross income from octroi at Rs 1,500 crore for the first three months and that from GST at Rs 5,883.75 crore for the remaining nine months.
“We have requested the state government to grant powers to levy and collect Professional Tax, which is being levied by the state for now. We have also requested to introduce a surcharge of 1 per cent of the value of an immovable property in case of sale or gift and in the case of an instrument of mortgage on the amount secured by the instrument. The above amendments would yield additional revenue to the tune of Rs 3,000 crore,” said civic chief Ajoy Mehta.
As a part of HR rationalisation and modernisation, the current system of separate cadres of stenographers, clerks, telephone operators etc. shall be discontinued. All these functions will be undertaken by an executive assistant. Similarly, there would not be a separate driver, labour, chawiwala in the hydraulic department. Key operators, who will drive as well as operate valves, will be given a vehicle with equipments. “This system will be implemented in case of new recruitments. But there will not be any lay off for the current staff,” said Mr Mehta.
Despite the earlier proposal of imposing property tax on slums turned down by political parties, the civic body has decided to reintroduce the proposal for the year 2017-18. “This will not only increase the tax net, but also result in generation of relevant data,” he added.
Money for health, edu. reduced
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s budget for 2017-18 has allocated fewer funds for education and health as compared to the corresponding figures of last year. It allocated Rs 3,311 crore for health department and Rs 2,311 crore for the education department. This year, education saw a cut of Rs 3.82 crore, while health saw a cut of Rs 83 lakh.
However, the BMC budget has focused on hospital security for which 700 men will be hired from the state security corporation. More focus on hospital security and hiring more medicos and non-medicos staff has been promised.
According to Dr Sagar Mundada, president of the Indian Medical Association’s youth wing, “National health policy released by central government of India has increased the healthcare infrastructure up to 2.5 per cent by 2025 from one per cent, whereas, BMC health budget has been cut by a few crores.” “The BMC budget has been cut for the first time to cut down liabilities. The commissioner accepted it was an exaggerated budget all these years. But the focus will remain on hospital security,” he said.
While family physician Dr Dilip Patil says, “BMC has been providing excellent care with poor patients getting several free treatments as compared to the private. If they have cut down their budget then it will surely reflect on the patient’s well-being, but initially BMC needs to add more funds to provide better treatments.”
On the other hand, educationists are also upset with BMC’s budget. Rajesh Pandya, president of Teachers Democratic Front says, “BMC should be emphasising on the projects for the benefit of the students. By cutting the budget it would be difficult to utilised the funds.” “BMC can give provide more facilities, new projects should be roped in and students should be encouraged to enrol in BMC schools,” he added.
However, K.M. Desai, a retired BMC school teacher said, “BMC is proving good quality of education. There should be more way to teach the kids in a cheerful environment. If budget is reducing then it’d get complex to pursue education in BMC-run schools.”
