Performance should be gauged from improvement in development index: Zagade Municipal Commissioner Mahesh Zagade on Friday tabled a Rs 2,984.55-crore budget estimate for 2011-12,Rs 211.55 crore less than that for the 2010-11 fiscal. While officials said the reduction will impact capital expenditure reduced by Rs 452.18 crore to 1,535.26 crore- Zagade,in his presentation,said that performance of the civic administration should not be gauged by spendings in a year but from improvement of human development index (HDI). It should be the additional contribution made to the life of citizens,or else the investment would be meaningless, he said at a press conference later. He spoke against spillover work from the previous budget. The PMC has to spend Rs 406 crore in the next fiscal for spillover work for the current fiscal. This is 26.32 per cent of the capital expenditure proposed for the year. If this continues,in a few years,the entire capital expenditure would go into completing work of the previous fiscal, Zagade said,adding that the practice should be stopped. The civic chief also clarified that the budget estimate assumes tax hike proposal would be approved and exemption schemes on tax withdrawn. If the tax hike proposal is not approved,the budget proposal would come down to Rs 2,677.07 crore, he said,adding that tax hike and withdrawal of discount schemes were crucial to improve revenue,based on which funds from the finance commission and JNNURM would come in. Administrative reforms introduced in this fiscal have started yielding results, Zagade said,stressing reforms would continue and more efficiency and accountability will be brought in among civic staff to improve health services. In his presentation,Zagade said that the ideal budget estimate should be Rs 9,282 crore to cater to the 42 lakh population of a city. He admitted that funding was poor for the civic body while governance is below par and planning is above average. Zagade said octroi department should be privatised to increase revenue a local body tax be adopted for long-term revenue collection. The revenue through property tax should ideally be 0.3 per cent of the total cost of property used for public purpose but it is 0.017 per cent in PMC and hence tax exemption should be withdrawn, he said. He said a hike of 50 per cent has been proposed in water charges.
