Mayor presents GHMC’s Rs. 5,643 Cr budget for 2017-18

Hyderabad  : GHMC Mayor Bonthu Rammohan on Saturday presented a budget of Rs. 5,643 crore for the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation for the financial year 2017-18.

The Mayor, in his budget speech, said that the GHMC’s Revenue Income would be Rs. 2926.82 Cr (51.47%) while the Capital Receipts would be Rs. 2,718.18 Cr (48.13%). As against the Revenue Expenditure of Rs. 2,616.27 Cr (46.36%), the Capital Expenditure will be Rs. 3,026.73 Cr (53.64%). The corporation proposes to spend about 53% funds on roads and almost 13% on housing.

In the year 2017-18, the GHMC proposes to receive Tax Revenues of Rs. 1285.67 Cr; Fee & User Charges of Rs. 962.79 Cr and Assigned Revenues of Rs. 583.30 Cr. Under the Capital Expenditure, the GHMC proposes to spend Rs. 288.45 Cr on Land & Land Improvements; Rs. 137.07 Cr on Buildings; Rs. 63.95 Cr on Bridges, Flyovers & Sub-ways; Rs. 1,611.45 Cr on Roads & Pavements; Rs. 249.80 Cr on Storm Water Drainage; Rs. 153.84 Cr on Water Supply & Sewerage; Rs. 41.36 Cr on Street Lighting; Rs. 16.50 Cr on Vehicles; Rs. 61.70 Cr on Machinery & Equipment and Rs. 400 Crore on Housing.

In his budget speech, the Mayor thanked Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao for giving Rs. 1,000 crore to the GHMC in State’s budget for



2017-18.

Responding to the demand for allocating Area Development Fund by corporators of all parties, the Mayor said an all party-meeting would be convened soon to take a decision in this regard. He also asked GHMC Commissioner Dr. Janardhan Reddy to take up the issue of vacancies in the corporation with the State Government.

The GHMC Commissioner said that the corporation hopes to receive the pending dues of Rs. 130 crore from the 14th Finance Commission in the financial year 2017-18. He also said that the GHMC plans to raise about Rs. 2200-2500 crore through bonds/loans for various developmental projects like double bed room housing for weaker sections.

Meanwhile, MIM MLC Syed Aminul Hassan Jafri demanded that the GHMC stop bearing the RTC losses. He said that the corporation was not having sufficient funds to implement its own projects, but it had to bear the burden of nearly Rs. 450 crore of RTC losses.

Mehdipatnam Corporator and former Mayor Majid Hussain sought more clarity on how the GHMC proposes to reach its financial targets. He asked whether the corporation was planning to increase the Property Tax.

Other corporators including Ayesha Rubina (MIM), Shankar Yadav (BJP), MA Ghaffar (MIM), Mustafa Ali Baig (MIM), G. Anjaiah (TRS) and Jayamma (TRS) also spoke.