Focus on revenue generation, minister tells utility officials

In his maiden meeting with the officials of various civic agencies and public utilities, Bengaluru Development Minister K J George on Monday stressed upon the need for revenue generation to carry out development works.

The marathon meeting which started at about 5 pm went on till 8.30 pm, said Palike sources. During the meeting, the minister directed the Palike officials to use modern technology to bring all the properties within the tax net.

He also instructed them to share the information with other civic agencies, namely Bescom and BWSSB, so that those properties, which are still out of the tax net, can be made taxable.

He said no property in Bengaluru - big or small - should be spared from the tax net and dues must be recovered from them.

George felt that the Legal Cell of the BBMP should dedicate more time to pursue each case and win them. He said on many occasions, legal officers had no idea what a case was about and when to appear for it.

The minister was critical about the Town Planning section of the BBMP saying that it had restricted itself to sanctioning building plans, whereas it never checked violations.

“There are building plan violations galore across the City but the Town Planning engineers are least bothered to check them,” the minister observed.

George was also unhappy with the poor advertisement revenue. Against the target of Rs 102 crore, so far only Rs 62 crore has been recovered. He instructed the officials to initiate measures to introduce the new advertisement policy. He also spoke about increasing revenue from optical fibre cables, and measures to be taken during heavy rains.

Mayor B N Manjunath Reddy, BBMP commissioner G Kumar Naik and BWSSB chairperson T M Vijay Bhaskar and other senior officers were present at the meeting.