A day after Punjab Governor and UT Administrator Gulab Chand Kataria refused to release any “special grant” to the cash-strapped Chandigarh Municipal Corporation (MC), city mayor Kuldeep Kumar Dhalor on Friday asked the municipal council to suggest ways and policies to boost the MC :’s own revenue generation.

“Since MC is facing an acute shortage of funds, you are requested to submit your valuable suggestions or recommendations to the mayor’s office, within seven days, to increase MC’s own revenue generation so that the financial conditions can be improved,” the mayor told the city council. in a written message.

Mayor Dhalor has called another special house meeting on November 4th to discuss the possibilities of generating revenue from various sources, including property receipts, property tax, community hall rent, parking fee, advertising fee, taxi rank rent, water bills, vendor fee, enforcement department receipts, garbage collection, ko cess, receipts from birth and death registration or correction, and other revenue generating departments of the civil body. “As the administrator urged the MC to generate revenue from its own receipts and reduce unnecessary expenditure, a meeting has been called to discuss the situation,” the mayor added.

While holding a review meeting of the MC and other departments of the Chandigarh administration over budgetary woes, the governor on Thursday directed the civic body to “cut down annual expenditure, increase revenue from own sources and strategize to improve fiscal health.”

Currently, the civic body is grappling with a severe financial crisis, forcing it to halt all development-related works across the city since May this year. The financial crisis is so serious that it has even put the already long-running road mat work on hold. In addition, there is uncertainty surrounding the release of employee salaries in the coming months.

The Chandigarh administration has earmarked ₹560 crore as grant-in-aid against the request of ₹1,651.75 crore for the current financial year. So far, MC has already received ₹SEK 387 million in grants. MC had calculated to generate revenue worth ₹350 crore from its own sources in this financial year. But from April 1 to September 30, MC could only generate ₹SEK 173.25 million.

Mayor asks commissioner to recover property tax, water bills from defaulters

“As the administrator told us to immediately recover property tax and water bills from defaulters to cope with the financial crisis, you are requested to provide a list of defaulters within seven days positively. Also immediate action is taken against defaulters including residents, shopkeepers, industrialists or government bodies who PGI, Panjab University, Government Buildings of Punjab, Haryana or UT Secretariat etc. They may get a final notice to deposit the tax and water bills .If they fail to deposit the tax on time, the process of sealing the said property and water meter will be initiated with immediate effect as per rules,” the mayor wrote to the commissioner, adding that the names of defaulters are being shared with the media so that they can deposit their dues well in time.