The Hindu : New Delhi News : MCD demand devoid of logic: BJP leader

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 13, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

MCD demand devoid of logic: BJP leader

Staff Reporter

Municipal Corporation's memorandum to Delhi Finance Commission seeks Rs. 17,000 crores

NEW DELHI: Terming the memorandum submitted by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi to the third Delhi Finance Commission as inflated, senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Leader of the Opposition in the MCD Standing Committee, Vijender Gupta, on Tuesday said that against the demand for Rs.17,000 crores, the Corporation was likely to get a few crores extra only.

In a statement, Mr. Gupta alleged that the memorandum was devoid of justification and logic. "The unjustified demand made by the Corporation will lead to complicating matters further and it needed to be probed how such a projection was made by the civic body without taking anyone into confidence."

In the memorandum, the gap between income and expenditure of the Corporation for the period 2006-11 has not been projected. "This is crucial to any memorandum, whether by the local Government to the State Finance Commission or by the State Government to Union Finance Commission. There is no mention of steps to be taken for augmenting the internal revenue resources and also measures to economise revenue expenditure have not been spelt out. The memorandum was based on half-truths. Most of the demands made to the First and Second Finance Commissions had been rejected earlier."

Mr. Gupta said though the Corporation had not incurred any money from its own budget on the mid-day meal scheme during the last two financial years, yet an amount of Rs. 10 crores per year for the next five fiscal years has been demanded. It violates the conditions of sanction of the Plan grant for this scheme. Ironically, the memorandum also contains that the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation has withheld an amount of Rs.256.75 crores payable to the Corporation and demanded the Delhi Government should compensate it. Further, an amount of Rs. 50 crores has been claimed as a loss due to non-imposition of the Professional Tax.

The Corporation has demanded that an unmentioned amount of short fall in income of the Corporation, due to implementation of Unit Area Method in Property Tax and the expenditure on the establishment of the Property Tax Department amounting to Rs.8.76 crores be made good by the Delhi Government. Almost all the schemes mentioned in the memorandum for which financial assistance has been sought are BOT schemes.

The schemes covered under the Plan or the National Capital Region Planning Board has already sanctioned loan for these.

Mr. Gupta said that only some of the excerpts from the Memorandum had been put up for consideration of the Standing Committee.

It may be to misguide the Standing Committee under the instructions of the Congress Party.

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