Civic bodies share fund details, say salary bills way more than grant

This fund, for the last four years, has remained way below the corporation’s expenditure on its employees. In 2012-13, the North corporation’s salary bill was Rs 1,789 crore while the government’s grant was Rs 487 crore.

Likewise, the salary bill for East corporation in the same financial year was Rs 1,002 crore and the government grant was Rs 290 crore. Both corporations are battling an acute shortage of funds and according to officials, diverting all internal and external income toward salaries.

In the current financial year (2015-16), the salary bill of the North civic body is Rs 2,700 crore while the government grant is Rs 890 core and the corporation has no means of covering the shortfall of over Rs 1,800 crore.

North Delhi mayor Ravindra Gupta said that all municipal accounts are first audited by an internal team and then by the CAG, and “even the Delhi government
appointed team has gone through the accounts.”

The North corporation collected Rs 342 crore as property tax in the last financial year, Rs 354 crore as transfer duty, Rs 301 crore as electricity tax and Rs 164 crore as toll tax. All this amount, as per the corporation, has been spent on salaries to the employees.

East Delhi mayor Harsh Malhotra said the economic woes of the civic body could be solved only by implementing fourth Delhi Finance Commission recommendations.