Chennai: Local bodies and municipal corporations in Tamil Nadu are now heading towards a Herculean task of handling both the drought and the local body polls during this summer.
The government bodies are now reeling under severe cash crunch and will certainly find it difficult to conduct civic polls and manage the drought at a same time and if central funds and state government grants are not released, the public will suffer, a highly placed government official told Deccan Chronicle.
February and March are the peak season for the state revenue officers to increase their earnings and the arrears in property tax and commercial tax are collected during this season. Registrations also gain momentum during this period, but demonetisation and drought have badly hit the revenue of local bodies and the state exchequer, the official said.
According to sources with the municipal administration and water supply department, all municipal corporations in Tamil Nadu are facing heavy financial crunch this year and payments to the contractors are also kept pending as most of the local bodies divert the funds earmarked for projects to pay their salaries and on maintenance.
Now with the water shortage looming across the state, the civic bodies will feel the pinch in the coming days, sources said. For instance, Chennai corporation for a month requires around Rs 120-130 crore, but the revenue earned by the corporation is less than Rs 40 crore and there is a shortage of fund forcing the civic body to take loans from banks at a higher rate of interest, the informed sources said.
Administrators at suburban Pallavaram and Tambaram municipalities are also now keeping their finger crossed and are looking forward for government funds.
The local body election for Pallavaram means an additional expense of Rs 45 lakh and another 40 lakh will be required for summer water management.
The only option before the local bodies to generate the project and the general funds and for Tambaram the poll expense will be about Rs 30 lakh, a local municipal official said.
