PUNE: Municipal commissioner Vikram Kumar on Monday presented the draft civic budget of Rs8,592 crore for the 2022-23 financial year, increasing it by Rs942 crore from his 2021-2022 budget of Rs7,650 crore.
Though the Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) key revenue source — building permission — may not perform as well as the ongoing fiscal, the civic body is banking on revenue from property tax and Goods and Services Tax (GST). “Taxes from the newly merged villages will also help us. Good revenue is expected from tax on cellphone towers, which is currently in a legal tangle. The state government will provide us with the GST share, which will be more compared to this fiscal,” Kumar said.
The property tax department has earned Rs1,700 crore from the levy and the civic body has set Rs2,160 crore as the target from the sector. Kumar said the civic body was trying to use artificial intelligence for detection of unauthorised properties to boost revenue collection. Even the change in the use of residential properties to commercial properties is being detected via this method.
“If we can win the legal battle relating to the cellphone towers, the PMC will generate Rs400 crore from it. The properties in the 23 merged villages will add to the PMC’s tax collection,” said Kumar .
The budget document has emphasised on the use of public private partnerships (PPP) for various development works. Projects such as multi-speciality and municipal hospitals will be built using the PPP model.
Kumar said the civic body would focus on speeding up the 24x7 water supply scheme, which has to be completed by June 2023. The PMC will lay a 400km pipeline for the project, install 1.5 lakh water meters and build 29 overhead water tanks. The civic body is exploring an option of issuing bonds of Rs300 crore for the project.
Presented amid the Covid pandemic, the budget stressed on building health infrastructure. It included completing the pending municipal hospitals and maternity homes.
Kumar said the civic body has earned around Rs5,443 crore in the ongoing fiscal till January-end. The income is expected to be Rs6,200 crore by the end of the 2021-2022 financial year.
