Mangaluru City Corporation’s pre-budget meeting evokes poor response

Mangaluru City Corporation’s pre-budget meeting evokes poor response

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangaluru, Jan 14, 2021:     The pre-Budget consultation meeting convened by Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) evoked poor response from the public and organisations on Wednesday.

 

Only five activists attended the meeting held in the Council Hall. “Invitation letters for Budget consultation meeting were sent to different organisations in the previous year. Thus 23 people had participated. This year no such invitation letters were sent,” Mayor Diwakar said taking officials to task for not dispatching
invitations to NGOs and activists.

“Even corporators too had failed to attend the meeting,” the Mayor rued. Members present urged the MCC to initiate measures on mobilising resources. Tax collections are not up to the mark. The Budget should chalk out programmes to collect pending arrears.

Activist Hanumantha Kamath said that MCC, which increases tax once in three years, had not revised building construction licence fee since 1992.

Pending dues

Kamath urged the MCC to release compensation for landowners who had lost land for Thumbe vented dam. Many people are yet to pay property and water taxes. The officials should be in MCC and make themselves accessible for public after 3 pm, he said.

Gopalakrishna Bhat, a resident, said property taxes were not collected from huge firms and hospitals. Instead of spending crores of rupees on solid waste management, it is better to hand over the system to Ramakrishna Mutt for effective implementation of solid waste management, he said.

Retired MCC employee Padmanabha Ullal said, “There is a need to review all works implemented without the permission of ward committees. If any misuse of funds is detected, then the amount should be recovered from officials.”

An activist urged the MCC to publish names of those who had failed to pay taxes and impose a hefty fine on buildings which had failed to provide parking facilities.

Deputy Mayor Vedavathi, Commissioner Akshy Sridhar among others were present at the event.

Courtesy:Deccan Herald