Udupi: The Udupi City Municipal Council (CMC) adopted a surplus budget of 1.06 crore for 2018-19 at its general body meeting here on Monday.
The budget, presented by CMC president Meenakshi Bannanje, showed the total receipts at ₹91.3 crore and expenditure projected at 90.24 crore.
The CMC expects to get 27.31 crore from grants of Union and State governments, 11.02 crore from property tax, 9 crore from water fee, 1.5 crore from rent on the CMC’s commercial complexes, 60 lakh from trade licences, 30 lakh from advertisements, 40 lakh from building licences, 30 lakh from legislators and parliamentarians local area development funds, and 16 lakh from underground drainage connections.
The estimated major expenses of the CMC include 8.93 crore for office maintenance and administrative expenditure, 25.4 crore for maintenance of roads, drains and footpaths, 2.68 crore for maintaining and installing street lamps, 3.5 crore for maintenance and repair of water pipelines, 7.9 crore for solid waste management, and 2.5 crore for maintenance of underground drainage system.
In its development proposals, the CMC has set aside 3.66 crore for the welfare of Scheduled Castes and Schedule Tribe communities, 1.28 crore for the development of parks and planting trees, 1.35 crore for construction of storm-water drains and small bridges, and 2.68 crore for installing and maintaining LED lamps.
The CMC also intends to build more gardens in the city. A new CMC office is planned at the old taluk office area at a cost of 15 crore.
While the treasury benches applauded the budget, the opposition councillors said there was nothing new in it and old proposals had merely been given a new garb.
M.R. Pai, leader of the opposition, said not all municipal wards had got an equal share of the grants. He said there was a lot left to be desired on the matter of road repair. Making the CMC a paperless office and installing LED lamps across the city are the only laudable proposals, he said. Janardhan Bhandarkar, councillor, called it a good budget which gave importance to all sectors.