Budget for 2018-19: Ahmedabad authorities "regularly" under-spend allocation

By Mahender Jethmalani*
The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s (AMC's) General Body (Municipal Board) recently passed the AMC’s annual budget estimates of Rs 6,990 crore for 2018-19. AMC’s revenue expenditure for the next financial year is Rs 3,500 crore and development budget (capital budget) is Rs 3,490 crore.
The revised estimate (RE) of AMC’s revenue expenditure budget for 2017-18 is Rs 2,900 crore against the budget estimates (BE) of Rs 3,241 crore, and the RE for development expenditure is Rs 2,450 crore against the BE of Rs 3,310 crore. Thus, AMC’s budget expenditure registered an under-spending of Rs 1201 crore (18.33%) in 2017-18, as AMC could not mobilize the financial resources as per planned estimates.
In fact, over the last six years, AMC has never been able to mobilize financial resources as planned, hence has not been able to fully spend development expenditure. The maximum development expenditure was 76.82% in 2015-16. It’s the development expenditure which enables the creation of new infrastructure for the city.

As for AMC’s revenue expenditure (salaries to employees, maintenance and repairs, grants etc), it has remained around 85% against the budget estimates in last six years. The less expenditure on revenue side impacts the quality of services to citizens. The revenue expenditure is around 90% due to salary, pension and social security of its employees.
AMC has budgetary provisions to address the needs of all citizens -- children, women and men, senior citizens, slum dwellers, vendors and others. AMC’s governance provides various services and amenities to citizens, but the efficiency and quality of delivery depends on various factors like resource mobilization and expenditure.
The compliance eco-system, where citizens pay their due tax dues regularly, besides financial resources devolved to AMC, help decision making process socially inclusive, transparent and accountable. When AMC fails in mobilizing the financial resources as estimated, the basic service delivery system gets affected and infrastructure development process gets decelerated due to shortage of finances.
AMC has never achieved/collected the tax/revenue from various sources as planned/estimated. The actual revenue collection has been 75% to 85% in the last five years. Achieving less revenue collections indicates poor tax administration and resource mobilization. AMC has been missing the target of revenue mobilization -- the shortfall was to the tune of Rs 827 crore in 2013-14, Rs 847 crore in 2014-15, over Rs 1,000 crore in 2016-17, and would be Rs 983 crore in 2017-18.
AMC’s expenditure budget for 2018-19 has been distributed in 25 functions/categories, as shown in the budget document “Know your City Budget: Where will AMC spend its annual budget of Rs 6990 crore in 2018-19?" Projects like metro and smart city, implemented by Railways and Special Purpose Vehicle respectively are not directly implemented by AMC, hence have very little budgetary outlay.
The budget outlay for some services is less than one percent, which, in a way, indicates the priority attached to that services like slum up-gradation (0.94%), fire brigade (0.9%), Integrated Child Development Service (0.83%), public toilets (0.36%), sports, stadium and gymkhana (0.19%), heritage (0.18%). The actual expenditure would be even less than this.

Presented under the Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporation Act, 1949 (amended to Gujarat Provincial Municipal Corporation Act), the budget document shows an outlay for mandatory 10% allocation out of revenue receipt for the welfare of scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, and other socially and economically backward communities, as per article 63(2) of the Act. Unfortunately, the document does not provide the statement of actual expenditure under it.
AMC needs to enhance its budgetary transparency by providing actual expenditure details for accountable practice for inclusive social justice, as the expenditure is meant for socially disadvantageous and poor people of the city. It should apresent ward-wise budget outlay for development work. The Vadodara Municipal Corporation has been presenting such document, which is the best transparency practice.
AMC should also adopt best practice of the Surat Municpal Corporation’s zone wise receipt and expenditure budget, given in the budget document. Since Ahmedabad city has Gujarat’s 10% population and annual budget more than Rs 6,000 crore, its female citizens deserve better services, and one way is to earmark substantial budget for providing services to women, girls and senior women citizens to address their practical needs of daily life.
In fact, AMC should bring out a gender budget statement within the AMC budget and insert it as an annexure to add value in enhancing transparency level like Mumbai and Pune Municipal corporations do.
---
*Director, Pathey Budget Centre, Ahmedabad. Contact: patheya.budget@gmail.com, patheya.budget@hotmail.com. Website: www.pathey.in

Comments

The silencing of conscience: Ideological attacks on India’s judiciary and free thought

By Sunil Kumar* “Volunteers will pick up sticks to remove every obstacle that comes in the way of Sanatan and saints’ work.” — RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat (November 6, 2024, Chitrakoot) Eleven months later, on October 6, 2025, a man who threw a shoe inside the Supreme Court shouted, “India will not tolerate insults to Sanatan.” This incident was not an isolated act but a continuation of a pattern seen over the past decade—attacks on intellectuals, writers, activists, and journalists, sometimes in the name of institutions, sometimes by individual actors or organizations.

N-power plant at Mithi Virdi: CRZ nod is arbitrary, without jurisdiction

By Krishnakant* A case-appeal has been filed against the order of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) and others granting CRZ clearance for establishment of intake and outfall facility for proposed 6000 MWe Nuclear Power Plant at Mithi Virdi, District Bhavnagar, Gujarat by Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) vide order in F 11-23 /2014-IA- III dated March 3, 2015. The case-appeal in the National Green Tribunal at Western Bench at Pune is filed by Shaktisinh Gohil, Sarpanch of Jasapara; Hajabhai Dihora of Mithi Virdi; Jagrutiben Gohil of Jasapara; Krishnakant and Rohit Prajapati activist of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has issued a notice to the MoEF&CC, Gujarat Pollution Control Board, Gujarat Coastal Zone Management Authority, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board and Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and case is kept for hearing on August 20, 2015. Appeal No. 23 of 2015 (WZ) is filed, a...

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu. He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

Celebrating 125 yr old legacy of healthcare work of missionaries

Vilas Shende, director, Mure Memorial Hospital By Moin Qazi* Central India has been one of the most fertile belts for several unique experiments undertaken by missionaries in the field of education and healthcare. The result is a network of several well-known schools, colleges and hospitals that have woven themselves into the social landscape of the region. They have also become a byword for quality and affordable services delivered to all sections of the society. These institutions are characterised by committed and compassionate staff driven by the selfless pursuit of improving the well-being of society. This is the reason why the region has nursed and nurtured so many eminent people who occupy high positions in varied fields across the country as well as beyond. One of the fruits of this legacy is a more than century old iconic hospital that nestles in the heart of Nagpur city. Named as Mure Memorial Hospital after a British warrior who lost his life in a war while defending his cou...

Citizens’ group to recall Justice Chagla’s alarm as India faces ‘undeclared' Emergency

By A Representative In a move likely to raise eyebrows among the powers-that-be, a voluntary organisation founded during the “dark days” of the Indira Gandhi -imposed Emergency has announced that it will hold a public conference in Ahmedabad to highlight what its office-bearers call today’s “undeclared Emergency.”

New RTI draft rules inspired by citizen-unfriendly, overtly bureaucratic approach

By Venkatesh Nayak* The Department of Personnel and Training , Government of India has invited comments on a new set of Draft Rules (available in English only) to implement The Right to Information Act, 2005 . The RTI Rules were last amended in 2012 after a long period of consultation with various stakeholders. The Government’s move to put the draft RTI Rules out for people’s comments and suggestions for change is a welcome continuation of the tradition of public consultation. Positive aspects of the Draft RTI Rules While 60-65% of the Draft RTI Rules repeat the content of the 2012 RTI Rules, some new aspects deserve appreciation as they clarify the manner of implementation of key provisions of the RTI Act. These are: Provisions for dealing with non-compliance of the orders and directives of the Central Information Commission (CIC) by public authorities- this was missing in the 2012 RTI Rules. Non-compliance is increasingly becoming a major problem- two of my non-compliance cases are...

Epic war against caste system is constitutional responsibility of elected government

Edited by well-known Gujarat Dalit rights leader Martin Macwan, the book, “Bhed-Bharat: An Account of Injustice and Atrocities on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-18)” (available in English and Gujarati*) is a selection of news articles on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-2018) published by Dalit Shakti Prakashan, Ahmedabad. Preface to the book, in which Macwan seeks to answer key questions on why the book is needed today: *** The thought of compiling a book on atrocities on Dalits and thus present an overall Indian picture had occurred to me a long time ago. Absence of such a comprehensive picture is a major reason for a weak social and political consciousness among Dalits as well as non-Dalits. But gradually the idea took a different form. I found that lay readers don’t understand numbers and don’t like to read well-researched articles. The best way to reach out to them was storytelling. As I started writing in Gujarati and sharing the idea of the book with my friends, it occurred to me that while...

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

'Violation of Apex Court order': Delhi authorities blamed for dog-bite incidents at JLN Stadium

By A Representative People for Animals (PFA), led by Ms. Ambika Shukla, has held the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) responsible for the recent dog-bite incidents at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, accusing it of violating Supreme Court directions regarding community dogs. The organisation’s on-ground fact-finding mission met stadium authorities and the two affected coaches to verify details surrounding the incidents, both of which occurred on October 3.

Counterview

Search This Blog