Chennai: Thanks to the litigation related to the disqualification of 18 MLAs pending before the Madras High court and the political uncertainty, the state government and the headless local bodies in TN continue to remain silent on the annual budget schedule. However, the officers have begun work on the budget, but there will not be any populist schemes or flowery announcements this year, confirmed highly informed sources.
"The union budget was a damp squib for Tamil Nadu. And if the Centre had allocated funds to Chennai Metro rail and AIIMS, the state should have obviously allocated funds on its part to strengthen the basic infrastructure near these projects, but now the focus will be more on roads and health institutions in the state", a senior official said. However, there will be new schemes in departments like education, industries and health as the state is used to spending a good chunk of money on these sectors. Another department that will get some additional funds this year will be state transport department and the department has already started works related to procurement of new buses, the official added.
In case of local bodies that are governed by special officers, the budget will be an annual paper filing work and it will be repeat of last year's procedural work. There are no funds in the Corporation exchequer and there are contractor bills pending for the past two years, said an informed revenue official attached to the Chennai Corporation.
The pay scale revision of Corporation employees and increased operating expenses are issues and the annual salary for the Corporation employees surges beyond Rs 1,000 crore in a budget with an out outlay of Rs 3,200 crore.
