KOCHI: The Fifth State Finance Commission has castigated the Kochi Corporation for its failure to generate own resources during the second day of its sitting on Saturday.
The Corporation has not shown any urgency in timely collection of tax and non-tax revenue, the Commission headed by noted economist Dr B.A. Prakash observed.
The corporation has not taken any steps to enhance the collection of rental income from halls, multiplexes and user fee for various services it offered.
The civic body was also a failure in the collection of property tax, advertisement revenue and professional tax. The Corporation officials informed that the presence of large number of junior advocates as a hurdle in collection of professional taxes.
The performance of the corporation in utilization of plan fund and implementation plan projects also drew the criticism of the commission,
The corporation has the dubious record of spending 60 per cent of the total plan allocation in one month, it noted.
Spending of money in such a manner will have severe impact on the quality of the projects. Another area of failure was inproper utilization of loans availed from centrally sponsored schemes and external agencies like Asian Development Bank.
The civic body has however made some impressive gains in the processing of solid and liquid wastes, cleaning of markets, public toilets. The corporation also informed the commission that projects for rehabilitation of slum dwellers are near completion.
The councilors who have attended sitting demanded that Kochi should be given the special status as in the case of Thiruvanathapuram,
Besides Dr. Prakash commission secretary T.K. Soman, corporation secretary V.R Raju, executive engineer Girija Devi and accounts officer V.V. Sudhan also attended the sitting.
