Tk 2171.34cr DCC budget announced

The Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) yesterday announced a Tk 2171.34 crore budget proposals for FY 2010-11 without raising the rate of holding tax. The outlay is around 54 per cent up from the FY 2009-10 original budget proposal.
The country’s premier city corporation also approved the revised budget of Tk 970.56 crore for FY 2009-10 fiscal.
The DCC Mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka announced the current fiscal year’s budget at the city’s Mahanagar Natyamancha in presence of the city ward commissioners and senior officials of the corporation.
The DCC is now mobilising holding tax at a rate of 12 per cent. We have no plan to raise the holding tax for the current year like the previous eight years,” Khoka said adding Tk 1735.49 crore, was approximately 80 per cent of the total budgetary allocation, was earmarked for the city’s development.
Elaborating the major earning source, the DCC mayor said they would mobilise revenue of TK 704.35 crore from their own sources for the 2010-2011 fiscal year. Out of the total target revenue Tk 325  crore from tax including dues,  Tk 100 crore from Salami and rent, Tk 46 crore from trade license fee, Tk five crore from rickshaw license, Tk 15 crore from advertisement, Tk 18 crore from bus and truck terminals, Tk 16 crore from cattle market lease, Tk 50 crore from road digging fee, Tk 10 crore from different machineries fare, Tk 78 crore from property hand over, Tk 2.50 crore from compensation, Tk four crore from children park, Tk 10 crore from power sector and Tk nine crore from others sectors. Moreover, Tk 100 crore will be earned from development grant of the government as lumps sum allocation.
He was hopeful that Tk 1254 crore would be collected from government, foreign aid and Public Private Partnership (PPP) based projects.  
Khoka in his budgetary speech said, Tk 371.85 crore had been allocated as revenue expenditure including salaries, power, electricity, maintenance works, advertisement and others.
He said, Tk 279.50 crore for maintenance and development of road and traffic infrastructure, Tk 80.60 crore had been allocated for reform and development of graveyard and cremation yard and construction and development of funeral places of the Buddhists.
Khoka in his budgetary speech said, Tk three crore have been allocated to upgrade and maintenance of the Shahid Zia Children’s park, Tk six crore for development of others parks and play grounds for entertainment of city dwellers, Tk 27 crore for construction of market and regional office of the corporation, Tk 11.50 crore establishment of sweeper colony, Tk five crore for car parking purpose, Tk 3.70 crore for development of environment.
Tk 10 crore had been allocated for construction and development of the community centres in all ward to develop and motivate the cultural activities, he added.
Khoka said, Tk 18 crore had been allocated for mosquito killing and purchasing of medicine and machinery. Besides, Tk 29 crore had been allocated to modernise, upgrade and purchase different development tools.
DCC Mayor said, a good amount had been allocated to digitalise the corporation’s daily activities to provide better service to the dwellers.
He said, corporation prepared projects with budget Tk 76 for road development and with a budget of Tk 60 crore for construction of road from city protection embankment to Mohammadpur bus stand under the government and foreign aid project. Besides, four projects had been prepared for construction of four road under passes in Shahbag, Sheratan, Banglamotor and Sonargaon intersections.
The city mayor said Tk 341 crore had been kept for building Jatrabari-Gulistan flyover, Tk 335 crore for financing the entrepreneurs and Tk 10 crore for construction of multi-storied sophisticated car park at Karwan Bazar under public- private partnership (PPP). He demanded integration of WASA with DCC to ensure combined services from the corporation to the dwellers.
City mayor underscored the need for extra police force for the corporation to recover the illegally occupied land or deployment of policemen under magistrates of the corporation.
He also said, the budget allocation for the DCC should be Tk 10,000 crore in the national budget. 

Courtesy of The Independent