AAP says corpns failed to generate revenue

New Delhi: The AAP government hit out at the BJP-ruled municipal corporations which alleged that it has not released their funds. The government also claimed that the civic bodies had not been paying attention to generation of internal revenue.
"The three municipal corporations are being given non-plan grants-in-aid according to the recommendations of the Third Delhi Finance Commission.The entire amount of Rs 892.92 crore of the revised estimates for 2015-16 under non-plan for North Delhi Municipal Corporation has been released by the government. Similarly, the entire amount of Rs 465.53 crore has been released for East Corporation. In case of both corporations, the principal amount of outstanding loans and interest amount was not recovered during the current financial year to tide over their financial crisis," said a government official.
He added that in case of South Corporation, an amount of Rs 668 crore, which is approximately 80% of the revised estimate of Rs 830 crore for the current financial year, has been released. The proposal for release of the remaining amount is under process, which is likely to be released very soon.
Government sources alleged that the corporations are holding onto a balance of about Rs 300 crore for education and health sectors. "The unspent money is only on the books of the corporations since they have diverted these funds. In case of education, about 75% of the plan budget has already been released to North and East corporations. In case of the South Corporation, about 53% of the budgeted amount has been released up to December, 2015. The remaining fund under education and health is being released to all three municipal corporations," added the official.
In case of share of local bodies in collection of stamp and registration fees, all claims raised by the corporations up to November, 2015, have been paid to them and the remaining amount will be released on receiving claims from the local bodies.
"The corporations have not been able to generate their own funds. A case in point is property tax. The total approximate commercial property tax assessees in the three corporations is about 9.5 lakh. SDMC has said according to data supplied by discoms, there are 2.77 lakh commercial connections whereas only 60,000 file property tax returns in the commercial category. North Corporation has said only 3.5 lakh assessees are paying property tax out of an estimated 10 lakh properties," said the official.
AAP's Delhi convenor Dilip Pandey said if the government had paid all dues to the corporations, it was clear that it was being siphoned off. "If the money has been given, why are the karamcharis not being paid? This is a clear case of corruption," he said.