City central committee of Communist Party of India (Marxist) has criticised the State Government of trailing behind its counterparts in other States in allocation of funds to the urban civic bodies. Pointing out that the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) gets a budgetary funding which is far less than what its peers in other cities get, the party has demanded a white paper on the allocations to the corporation for the last three years. As per the information provided by the city central committee, during 2015-16, the share of State-devolved funds to the GHMC amounted to ?345 crore which was mere 11.36% of the corporation’s total budget, whereas the same by the Karnataka State Government stands the highest at 45.34% for the Bengaluru Municipal Corporation, amounting to ?2,378 crore. For Kolkata, it was 41.54% at ?1,468 crore, and for Chennai, 35.93% at ?1,457 crore. For 2016-17, the share of state-devolved funds for GHMC further came down to ?52.36 crore which was mere 1.74% of the whole. During the last three years, the Government had cut down about ?3,000 crore which had lawfully accrued to the GHMC, a statement from the party accused. Besides, ?334 crore funds were diverted to the TSRTC. Choking from lack of funds, the civic body was unable to provide basic infrastructural facilities such as roads and drainages, the statement said and pointed out that the Government had been very lackadaisical in allocation of the GHMC’s share of professional tax, octroi, motor vehicle tax, property tax compensation, stamp duty and entertainment tax.

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