The mayor Sovan Chatterjee on Friday presented Rs 127 crore deficit budget at the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) for the financial year 2018-19 while allocating an amount of Rs 649.21 crore to the Solid Waste Management (SWM) department.

The mayor on Friday presented Rs 127 crore 80 lakh deficit budget at the KMC in contrast to last year’s approximately Rs 159 crore deficit budget. A huge sum of Rs 649.21 crore has been allocated to the solid waste department for the year 2018-19 in comparison to funds allocated to other departments.

Speaking on some of the planned developments in the SWM department and the initiatives that will be taken by the civic body, the mayor, Sovan Chatterjee, said ,“A tender process has been completed for an amount of more than Rs 28 crore out of 152.83 crore under Mission Nirmal Bangla (Urban) for procurement of equipments and machineries, construction of compactor stations and few others.

“Work of Rs 15 crore has already been done and utilisation of the rest portion of the fund is in progress.

“A pilot project has been taken up for conversion of organic market waste into bio-CNG, bio-CO2 and compost by processing of five metric tonne market waste daily at Dhapa and for which the state Urban Development and Municipal Affairs department sanctioned an amount of Rs 1.01 crore out of Rs 4.06 crore for which the tender process is in progress.”

Meanwhile, a sum of Rs 295.54 crore has been allocated for the Roads department for the financial year 2018-19. The KMC will soon take up massive works in roads like Mahanirban Road, Khudiram Bose Sarani, PGM Shah Road, Sadananda Road, Humayun Avenue and few others.

The civic body is also planning to smoothen up 91 roads in phases. The first phase will witness work on Alipore Road, Judges Court Road, Harish Mukherjee Road, Rash Behari Avenue and Southern Avenue, stated the mayor.

A sum of Rs 264.77 crore has been allocated to the Parks and Squares department where the KMC has taken an initiative to construct three new parks under the AMRUT scheme while carrying out development and beautification of five existing parks. KMC has further procured 10 more vehicles fitted with adjustable jet pumps recently for watering of plants and cleaning roads.

The Sewerage and Drainage department has been allotted a sum of Rs 264.77 crore while works that are to be taken up include procurement of 50 sets of six inch via electrical pump before monsoon this year.

Mr Chatterjee said, “We are going to procure another 74 manhole desilting machines and 65 gully pit emptier machines, 43 jetting cum suction machines, three open canal desilting machines and 18 sets of power bucket machines in the financial year 2018-19.”

In addition to these, Health department was allocated Rs 156.61 crore, Social Welfare and Urban Poverty Alleviation-Rs 21.13 crore, Slum development- Rs 159.27 crore, Education-Rs 40.45 crore, Market department- Rs 31.46 crore, Lightning and Electricity department- Rs 127.65 crore and Water Supply -391.96 crore.

Mr Chatterjee on property tax collection said, “The number of tax payers have increased from 7.55 lakh to 7.85 lakh.. To assist tax payers, KMC has primarily appointed Self Assessment Return Preparator (SARP) to help fill up the Self Assessment Form (SAF) under the Unit Area Assessment (UAA) method of property tax payment.

If there is a lack of interest from the side of the tax payers to pay taxes as per the UAA system, KMC will suo-motu implement the system as per provisions of the law.” He further added the civic body’s revenue target concerning property tax collection is Rs 998.90 crore in the financial year 2018-19.