Behind closed doors, babus pass Chennai’s annual budget

CHENNAI: With no elected council, the special officer’s council of the Greater Chennai Corporation has passed the civic body’s annual budget behind closed doors for a second successive year.
According to corporation sources, the budget document was passed last week and nobody, including the media, was intimated as per the instructions of special officer/commissioner D Karthikeyan.While budget documents show that the corporation expects to increase its property tax revenue to Rs 1,200 crore -- up by almost 60% -- the special officer’s council has refrained from announcing new schemes or projects intended to benefit city residents.

“We have concentrated on stabilising the corporation’s financial situation. Expenditure on infrastructure hinges on the revenue we make in the next fiscal,” said a corporation source.
The boost in property tax is expected to push the corporation’s income from taxation closer to the Rs 1,800 crore mark. “Though a decision on revising property tax rates is yet to be taken, our assessment pool will increase when we complete drone-mapping properties. This is why we expect to earn more from property taxes,” said a corporation official.
That said, the corporation is deep in debt. The civic body expects to borrow Rs 620 crore in the next fiscal from banks and other financial institutions. Yet, it only expects to wipe out Rs 126 crore from its existing debt sheet. At least, Rs 60 crore will be paid towards interest on existing loans.
However, it is the secrecy with which the budget was ratified that has irked residents, activists and even former Ripon Buildings administrators. “Only because there is no elected council in place the officers must be thinking that they could get away with such practices. When I used to be the mayor, we would discuss with NGOs and resident welfare associations and factor in their demands before preparing the budget. This (secrecy) is not good for anyone,” said former mayor M Subramanian, now the Saidapet MLA.
When the issue of secret budget flared up last year, social activism group Satta Panchayat Iyakkam wrote to the commissioner demanding the release of documents. “The habit of proactive dissemination (of documents) is absent in the city corporation. The problem with such bureaucratic budgets is that they lack vision,” said S T Mahesh Kumar, secretary, Satta Panchayat Iyakkam.
Kumar said because bureaucrats do not feel the “five-year pressure” like a politician, they think it is irrelevant to make policy or scheme announcements during a budget. “For the officers, it is routine duty. But the politician must reach out to people,” he said.
T Nagar resident S Jayaraman, the corporation’s zonal offices did not call residents for a consultative meet ahead of the budget. “When they held consultative meets, they used to do it half-heartedly. But even that half-baked attempt was absent this year. It is absolutely wrong for the corporation to treat Chennai residents like this,” he said.