Ceiling on expenses for civic bodies polls

Addressing a press conference in Bangalore, he said suitable amendments would be made to the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act - 1976 to fix the ceiling on election expenditure at Rs two lakh for each candidate contesting elections to CMCs, Rs 1.5 lakh for those contesting TMC polls and Rs one lakh per candidate for TP elections.

He said the proposal had been cleared by the law department and would be placed before the State Cabinet for approval soon. There are 44 CMCs, 94 TMCs, 68 TPs in the State. Hitherto, there was no ceiling on election expenditure for local urban bodies. Once the new law is enforced, candidates will have to maintain and furnish accounts of their election expenditure to the State Election Commission

Last year the government had brought in amendments to the KMC Act, as a special case, to fix the ceiling at Rs five lakh for each candidate contesting Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) polls. However, the election expenditure ceiling was restricted only for BBMP.
The municipal administration department will soon fill 480 vacancies at various levels including revenue inspectors, junior engineers, among others, said Jarkiholi.

The minister said the municipal administration department had utilised 76 per cent of the grants provided as per the recommendations of the State Finance Commission to urban local bodies during 2006-10. Of the Rs 2,187 crore provided, Rs 1,668 had been utilised. He said of the Rs 487 crore funds provided as per the recommendations of the 12th Finance Commission, the department had utilised Rs 436 crore.

He said Rs five crore had been released for mitigating drinking water shortage in Bangalore (Rural), Kolar and Chikkaballapur.