Rs27 billion KMC budget unveiled for next fiscal year

Mayor Waseem Akhtar unveiled the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation’s (KMC) Rs27.14 billion budget for the financial year 2017-18 during the City Council’s session on Monday.

Total receipts in the budget for the next fiscal year are Rs26.84 billion, including Rs18.02 billion as current receipts and Rs1.8 billion as capital receipts.

Funds for the provincial annual development programme (ADP), the district ADP and the viability gap funding (VGF) will be Rs7.03 billion.

The total expenditure for the next financial year will be Rs27.14 billion, out of which Rs11.74 billion are allocated for the establishment, Rs2.08 billion for contingent expenses and Rs251.69 million for repairs and maintenance, totalling Rs14.07 billion.

Besides, Rs6.05 billion have been earmarked for development projects while expenditures from the provincial ADP, the district ADP and the VGF will be Rs7.03 billion.

‘Realistic and balanced’

The city mayor said that all efforts were made to make the budget “realistic and balanced”. “No new tax is levied and the focus is mainly on improving the existing revenue resources.”

The slogan for this budget is “raise our income, adopt self-reliance”, under which non-development expenditures are curtailed and more attention is on development activities, he added.

He said the provincial governor had assured him of providing some funds from the federal government for development works in the metropolis. “If the prime minister provides the funds, they will be spent on all the districts of the city.”

Akhtar said development schemes would be carried out in a transparent manner. He warned the KMC’s departmental heads that if they failed to immediately provide all the required information to the City Council’s committee members, they would be sacked.

He also announced that a full-scale tree plantation campaign would be conducted across the metropolis after Eidul Fitr.

“Despite unfavourable conditions, we are presenting a 13-billion-rupee development budget for the next financial year, which includes 750-million-rupee development schemes suggested by the elected representatives of the City Council, while an additional billion rupees were allocated for development works in union committees.”

He once again accused the Sindh government of distributing the revenue function to various organisations that annually incurred losses of billions of rupees to the KMC.

Referring to the development works carried out across the city since he became the mayor, Akhtar said a total of 225 district ADP schemes were completed during 2016-17 with Rs4.25 billion, while 41 schemes under the provincial ADP were also completed with Rs3.79 billion. “We have planned to work on many public-private partnership schemes next year to raise the city’s development portfolio further.”

He added that a 21-billion-rupee development package proposal was also sent to the premier, which, if approved, would result in a lot of development in Karachi.