UT ready to share RLA revenue after Governor’s promise: Mayor

Days after Punjab Governor and Chandigarh Administrator Gulab Chand Kataria promised to bail out the severely fund-starved Municipal Corporation (MC), Mayor Harpreet Kaur Babla on Tuesday claimed that the UT Administration has agreed to share the revenue generated by the Registering and Licencing Authority (RLA) from vehicle registrations with the civic body.

In an exclusive chat with The Tribune last week, Kataria had said the UT Administration was considering several options for a bailout package to pull the MC out of the economic crisis.

The Mayor said the revenue would be shared in ratio of the maintenance of road works undertaken by the Administration and the MC. She said the revenue sharing would be done without transferring the RLA to the MC. She said besides, the Administration has also agreed for transferring some of the works carried out by the Estate Office to the MC.

She said senior officials of the UT, including the Finance Secretary, informed her that the Administration would soon write to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to give the permission for revenue-sharing. She said the assurance came after she wrote letters to UT Chief Secretary Rajeev Verma and Home Secretary-cum-Local Government Secretary Mandip Singh Brar on the issues.

Babla said the total revenue receipts of the RLA in a year stood at approximately Rs 350 crore. In view of this, she requested for allocation of at least 50% of the RLA revenue towards maintaining roads and parking lots in the city.

She said the MC was responsible for maintaining nearly 1,860 km of roads, approximately 60% of the total road length in the UT. Additionally, the civic body also maintains roads and streets in 22 villages falling under the municipal limits. Babla said despite being responsible for a significant portion of road maintenance in the city, the MC did not have any share in the RLA revenue. She said Section 6 of the Municipal Corporation Act, 1976, as extended to the UT, provided that after the close of each year, the government may pay to the civic body whole or such part as it may determine of the tax collected by it from every person keeping a motor vehicle within the local area of the city.

Chandigarh