<b>Nagarpalikas in debt zone fighting to stay alive

Nagarpalikas in debt zone fighting to stay alive Monday, April 2, 2001

AHMEDABAD: The nagarpalikas have been at the receiving end all this time. Ever wondered why? For one, in all the ten nagarpalikas, the coffers are fast drying up.
The `dry' spell begans with hefy electricity bills the nagarpalikas have to pay the Ahmedabad Electricity Company (AEC), but can't due to lack of funds. Till date, all the ten Nagarpalikas falling in the AUDA area of the city collectively owe the AEC Rs 23 crore in electricity dues.

For six years now, these amounts varying from Rs 33 lakh to Rs 5 crore for each nagarpalika have been pending. And with the summer here, the AEC authorities fear the amounts would add up thanks to pumps connected to borewells which use up most of the electricity, followed by street lights and other amenities.

"The AUDA keeps providing us street lights, generator sets, and other such public amenities, but the burden of maintaining them falls on us. We have a limited source of income which is insufficient to settle huge bills. Even the regular payments are made with utmost difficuties," claims an official from Chandlodhiya nagarpalika.

Several attempts have been made by AEC officials to disconnect power, but invariably it had to be restored within a couple of days. "People approach the political bigwigs in Gandhinagar and they force us to restore power. At the same time we have to show passion on the grounds that essentials like water would not be provided if we were strict," claims another AEC official.

There is one common reason that put these nagarpalikas in such dire states. In 1994, overnight, all nagar panchayats were converted into nagarpalikas. With this conversion, they lost out on a number of subsidies the biggest among them was the State Government stopped paying their electricity bills. So, while the income, which was mainly from residential taxes remained the same, the bills for all the power they use had to be paid.

"Our areas do not even fall in the octroi limits or we could have collected some more money. Back then we used to pay only 20-25 paisa per unit of electricity. Now, we pay the full rate and due to this we owe more than Rs 4 crore to the AEC. We want to make the pending payment, but do not know how," says Chief Officer of Vejalpur nagarpalika R B Patel.

Similar stance is taken by Chief Officer of Memnagar nagarpalika N Karandhikar: "We recently were able to pay Rs 6.5 lakh but the rest, more than Rs 20 lakh, we don't know from where to get to get the money from. In the past 20 years the electricity rates have increased drastically and at the same time, taxes haven't registered an iota of growth." Karandhikar adds: "Even the cleaning up operation which involves tractors and paying the labourers is an expensive job. We have an income of about Rs 40-50 lakh which is absorbed in staff salaries and maintainence. This summer, we have seven new borewells. It is difficult to break even, forget about paying up."

Another thing the nagarpalikas have to cope with is the rapid growth in the city in terms of new infrastructure like laying roads, street lights etc. "We have an outstanding debt of Rs 80 lakh. Only paying bills for borewells is eating into our meagre resources. Each bore consumes about Rs 50,000 worth of electricity, and there are 11 such borewells," claims C J Christain Chief Officer of Jodhpur nagarpalika. "Take this simple case. Our income from taxes is about Rs 50 lakh and our expenses are Rs 60 lakh. Then how can we pay more than 4 crore in dues," says an official of Ranip nagarpalika.

With no Government help coming in the near future, the debts, it seems for the nagarpalikas, are here to stay.

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