The Chennai Corporation has incurred whopping losses to the tune of `1,016.79 crore during the tenures of M K Stalin and M Subramaniam as Mayors, according to an audit report conducted by an independent firm.
Releasing the audit report at the Corporation Council meeting on Tuesday, Mayor Saidai Duraisamy said that the body incurred a loss of `288.34 crore during 1996-97 and 2000-01, while `728.45 crore was lost during 2006-07 and 2009-10. The Revenue Department incurred the highest loss of `92.89 crore during the assessed period.
“Several inconsistencies such as improper assessment of property tax and non-collection of fines for unauthorised structures have come to light. Also, there was improper collection of advertisement tax, company tax and approval charges, which have led to the losses,” the Mayor said.
Second on list of loss-making departments was land and estate department (`24.92 crore), followed by solid waste management department (`22.67 crore).
Revealing that zone 5 alone had incurred a loss of `34.26 crore, the Mayor said, “The report reveals that there was improper assessment of road work. The report has concluded that total expenditure of the corporation during these years was only `2,192 crore.”
Though DMK councillors staged a walk out in protest of the report, they re-entered only to be evicted by Mayor citing previous unrest.
Meanwhile, the Corporation’s ambitious scheme to construct a total of 10,000 roads within this year was in focus at the civic body’s urgently convened council meeting on Tuesday.
During the meeting, the Mayor announced that work on several roads was on and it would be completed by this year-end. Also, he said that out of the total 126 schemes announced during the budget meeting conducted last week, the Corporation had completed work on over 26 projects and work on the remaining 100 schemes was underway.
The Council took up for discussion other schemes such as the cycle-sharing system and passed a resolution to establish about 150 to 170 cycle stands across the city. A resolution was passed on a new parking management system which has been structured to monitor and regularise public parking space in the city with the help of Institute for Transport Development Policy. There were plans to set up three bio-methanisation plants each at a cost of `49.5 lakh to convert bio degradable waste into electricity at the cremation yards at New Avadi Road, Otteri and Vanagaram Street for which MoU has been signed with BARC.