JNNURM reforms making Chennai flush with revenue

Chennai, Nov 1 : With money now coming through the Centre's Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission(JNNURM) programme, lot of pride and capacity building is finally taking place for reforms in this metropolitan city besides flushing it with revenue, Chennai Municipal Commissioner Rajesh Lakhoni said.

''Earlier, there was no money to infuse the standards into the Tamil Nadu capital. Now through the JNNURM, that money is coming. Major gaps have been eradicated in the city administration.

I really do not have to worry now,'' Mr Lakhoni told UNI here.

Property tax is a major source of revenue for the Corporation today. With mapping of each property to increase the coverage of tax payers, tax collection facility on Blackberry phones and 25 per cent discount to those owning property, the tax collection has risen to Rs 298 crore from Rs 220 crore.

''Suddenly, we are flushed with money despite the fact that we are under recession. We still have Rs 528 crore in arrears. Besides, we collected Rs 148 crore under professional tax from those whose income is more than Rs 3500,'' the Commissioner said.

''Chennai city is the first in the country to privatise garbage disposal. We did Public Private Partnership for treating garbage and it has gone on royalty. I am actually selling garbage,'' Mr Lakhoni said.

As a result, Chennai is getting the advantage of Rs 300 per tonne in garbage disposal. The corporation pays the hired companies Rs 650 per tonne and they collect the garbage. Rs 950 per tonne is the Corporation's total cost in this whole process.

The city corporation also put GPS monitoring on all vehicles due to which 20,000 litres of diesel was saved which comes to Rs six lakh saving per week.

Besides, under the JNNURM reforms, 1600 buses have been sanctioned out of which the city has received 300 buses - 20 A/C volvo buses and rest non-A/C low floor buses - which were inaugurated this week and are operational now.

Out of the sanctioned 1600 buses, 1000 are for Chennai and 300 each for the cities of Madurai and Coimbatore but they will come later.

--UNI

(c) 2009 Published with permission from United News of India.
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