RAWALPINDI:The Rawalpindi Municipal Corporation (RMC) on Thursday approved a surplus budget of Rs6.8 billion for the fiscal year 2024-25 with the allocation of Rs4.724 billion for development schemes.

The budget was presented by Chief Municipal Officer Imran Ali and Municipal Officer Finance Khawaja Faisal Javed and approved by RMC Administrator Aamir Khattak.

According to the documents, the total outlay of the budget is Rs6.826 billion. An amount of Rs1.755 billion has been allocated for non- development expenditures while Rs4.724 billion will be spent on development works.

Moreover, Rs532.440 million have been set aside for salaries of the employees, Rs600 million for pension, Rs575.540 million for contingency/services and commodities and Rs47 million for miscellaneous.

On the direction of Punjab government, the RMC allocated two per cent of its budget for sports and youth development. When contacted, the chief municipal officer said the RMC planned to utilise the development funds on major schemes as roads and streets had already been improved.

He said a total of Rs1.968 billion would be spent on new development schemes while Rs2.096 billion would be utilised for repair and ongoing development schemes. He said Rs2.006 billion had been allocated for ongoing schemes of municipal infrastructure and Rs30 million for repair of streetlights, Rs35 million patchwork of roads and Rs25 million for building and structure repair.

According to the documents, the RMC expects to generate Rs150m from penalty compound fee, Rs1.85m from slaughterhouse lease and Rs23m from Pirwadhai general bus stand entry fees.

The budget also anticipates income from various other sources, including Rs18m from car parking fees, Rs321.3m from PFC, Rs3.334m from general bus stand shop lease, Rs8.3m from city shop lease, Rs3.2m from the Suzuki stand, Rs2.9m from public washrooms, Rs60m from the rent of general bus stand shops and Rs280m from the rent of city shops.

On the other hand, a senior official of RMC said the commercialisation fee was less compared to last year’s as a meeting at of the divisional administration was not held to approve new areas for commercial purposes. However, he said the RMC was planning to further enhance its income and soon it would submit a plan to the administrator for approval.

In the absence of the elected local government, the administration will get suggestions for development work from the Punjab government and elected representatives of the city, he added.

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2024