GHMC collections zoom 2,500 per cent in old currency

Hyderabad: Municipal revenue of Hyderabad skyrocketed by 2,500 per cent in November thanks to the Centre allowing people to pay their bills with the scrapped Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes. The overall revenue collection in cities shot up to Rs 1,722 crore in November as compared to Rs 489 crore in the same month last year. According to the finance ministry estimates, there has been an unprecedented 252 per cent increase in revenue collection by cities for utilities ranging from water and electricity bills to property tax.

The list of top five cities with the maximum percentage increase in revenue collected this month, compared to November 2015, is led by Hyderabad, which has seen a 2,500 per cent jump. North Delhi is a close second with a 2,432 per cent surge and two Gujarat cit-ies – Surat (2,314 per cent) and Rajkot (1,275 per cent) – take the third and fifth spots. In terms of actual cash flow, Hyderabad again tops the list with a record Rs 206 crore collection. Ahmedabad is second with a revenue windfall of '187 crore, followed by Surat with '173 crore and Kalyan ('170 crore). Mumbai collected Rs 167 crore in November.

While scrapping high denomination currency on November 8, the Central government had allowed the use of the old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes for a range of services from buying fuel to paying for utilities. Municipal bodies thus accepted the old currency for setting all past as well as present dues, leading to a flood of revenues. However it should be noted that the collections received in November were anyway meant to be paid for the annum. Citizens made use of the scheme to disposed off their banned notes  and made quick payments.

With this, the revenues of GHMC and other municipal boards like HMWSSB , electricity board  are not likely to witness large income in the following months, as majority of them have been cleared in November including the arrears.