KOCHI: As the Congress-led UDF council in the Kochi Corporation is all set to present its annual budget for the financial year 2018-19 on next Saturday, the focus will be likely on revenue generating proposals rather than on development projects. With dwindling resources, the Corporation is finding it tough to allocate funds for development projects.
The budget is likely to have new tax proposals to strengthen the civic body exchequer. The topmost priority would be enhance revenue, plug revenue loss and identify additional revenue sources. Deputy Mayor T.J. Vinod had earlier said that since the State government has taken away the right to collect entertainment tax and advertisement tax, the two major revenue sources, the Corporation is in an unprecedented financial crisis. "Hence, the civic body has to identify new revenue sources to compensate the loss," he added.
The State government's assurance on compensating for loss of entertainment tax still remains on paper. The right of the civic body to collect entertainment tax was taken away in order to avoid double taxation under the GST regime. It is estimated that the Corporation would lose Rs 12 crore to Rs 13 crore while the loss from advertisement tax is nearly Rs 4 crore. The Corporation is not even able to allocate ULB (urban local body) share for big projects funded by Union government like Smart City Mission.
However, the revenue enhancement proposals mooted in the 2016-17 annual budget still remains on paper. The major budget proposals were levying cess on vacant plots in city, special development charge for realty development within 500 metres of Metro stations, mobile tower tax, entertainment tax for cable TV, intensive professional tax collection drive, imposing property tax on Cochin Port Trust areas and identifying and reclaiming the Corporation's lost assets.
