Mayor presents budget

Bhattacharya said that the full budget would be presented after the general elections are over. “We cannot present the full budget as that comes under the violation of model code of conduct. But we had to present the interim income and expenditure,as the current financial year will end this month,” said Bhattacharya.

Bhattacharya further said according to the model code of conduct before the polls the civic body cannot announce any kind of financial grants and hence the annual budget cannot be adopted now. However,to adopt the recommendations of the fifth pay commission a provision of Rs 20 crore has been kept in the interim budget.

“Since details of the pay commission recommendations are already known a more specific allocation of funds could have been done and there was no need for an ad-hoc provision,” complained opposition councillor Debasish Kumar.