Civic body chief issues spending guidelines to staff

Against the backdrop of the budget for 2019-20 financial year announced by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), the commissioner of the civic body has issued guidelines to officials regarding implementation of the proposed projects.

BBMP Commissioner N Manjunath Prasad, who had earlier written to the government requesting to cancel projects worth Rs 3,000 crore of the overall Rs 13,000-crore works announced by the Congress-JD(S) coalition, was snubbed by the government. It later approved a budget of Rs 11,648 crore and cancelled proposals worth Rs 1,200 crore.

Citing the BBMP’s failure to achieve the revenue receipts against the expenditure for many years, the BBMP Commissioner has asked officials to collect the entire revenue receipts for the 2019-20 financial year.

“The work should be carried out within the estimated cost after the prior approval of all concerned wings and departments heads. The project cost must be limited to the specific work.

“The revenue must not be included in the project implementation and the entire work must be taken up under the sanctioned amount, excluding revenue receipts. In case of additional amount required for the project announced in the budget, the approval for the same with accurate specific reasons must be taken up with the commissioner before issuing the work order,” a section of the commissioner’s 18-point guideline read.

Further, the commissioner asked the officials to prepare the road history before taking up civic works.

“The road history should be compulsorily assessed and uploaded to the BBMP website before taking up road and drain works in the city. The budget allocation for the spillover works must be carried out within the sanctioned amount and cannot be considered to be allowed for the entire project, though job codes have been issued to them,” the guidelines said.

However, the guideline from the commissioner is said to have come after the BBMP’s Rs 13,000-crore budget announcement. The BBMP recently received Rs 2,400 crore from the state government which approved its Rs 8,015-crore action plan in the current year’s budget.