Local body bets heavily on sale of developed properties
Mysore Urban Development Authority (Muda) is unable to allot sites and generate money to take up development works and is therefore changing its revenue-generation model.
On Saturday the urban body indicated that it will go all out to sell the corner and intermediate sites in the developed layouts to garner resources. It also mentioned that it will continue to develop new layouts to clear the applications pending with it for over a decade.
Till December it ended up earning only Rs 142.15 crore, from the sale of corner and intermediate sites, whereas in 2013-14, it proposed to generate Rs 150.95 crore. It now expects to raise Rs 60 crore by March. It has projected to generate Rs 240.56 crore during 2014-15; up from Rs 202.15 crore it is expecting to get at the end of this fiscal in March, given the interest of the property buyers to pick up sites in the leading tier II city in the state.
With the sites being e-auctioned at regular intervals, pushing market rates and earning extra bucks to the local body, as property buyers are bidding competitively. Muda has a good reserve of corner and intermediate sites in developed layouts, which it will e-auction in 2014-15.
The local body is targeting the sale of civic amenities (CA) sites, by betting heavily on the sale of developed properties. It has projected Rs 34 crore revenue in 2014-15 by setting in a process to allot 109 CA sites. It has not allotted CA sites since 2004-05, said by a local body.
The one who presented the annual budget, Muda commissioner S Palaiah, revised the revenue to Rs 486.70 crore as against the projected amount of Rs 540.96 crore, a climb down of Rs 54.26 crore, because the local body has not been able to generate Rs 140.20 crore it had approximated. As against Rs140.20 crore, Muda has earned Rs 6.41 core till December. It expects another Rs 50 lakh till March. Taking no chances, Palaiah put the revenue from the sale of sites at Rs 132.95 crore.
Its expenditure has also suffered, because of less revenue generation. It has been able to spend only Rs 164.54 crore till December, as against the projected spending of Rs 539.32 crore. By March it hopes to spend another Rs 97.62 crore for development works. The revised expenditure has been put at Rs 262.17 crore. Poor financial performance has led to a reduction of expenditure to Rs 484.38 crore for the next year.
It’s plans to allot CA sites this fiscal have left its revenue receipts struggle, where as failure to allot sites has hit Muda badly. Only Rs 1.48 crore has been realized, as against the projected Rs 55 crore. Its plan to go in for vertical growth – by building apartment blocks — has also met with failure.
The sketch to collect toll from those plying on Outer Ring Road, which it likely to fetch Rs 1 crore, has fallen flat like the vacant sites tax (Rs 2 crore) and collection of betterment tax (Rs 20 crore) .
Other than sale of corner sites, the only head which has overshot the projected revenue generation is the fee collected from the city plan development and growth.
Source: The Times of India
Annual budget, civic amenities (CA) sites, Mysore Urban Development Authority, Outer Ring Road, revenue-generation model, S Palaiah
