Patna, March 24: The Patna Municipal Corporation Board today passed the annual budget for 2011-2012 amid chaos, uproar and confusion. The draft of the budget approved by the board, however, was unclear on whether the deficit in the budget stood at Rs 2.9 crore or Rs 29 crore as there were blatant contradictions in the documents.

The question, which remained unanswered, was whether this was a printing mistake, as claimed by the PMC authorities, or a deliberate effort to downplay the revenue losses.

While the calculations clearly suggest that the deficit stands at close to Rs 29 crore, the PMC officials claimed that the deficit was Rs 2.9 crore only and the mistakes were typing errors. Sources in the urban technical assistance support team (UTAST) — the agency which has prepared the budget — said that the deficit was Rs 29 crore hinting that officials could have tried to fudge with the data to downplay the revenue loss.

Mayor Afzal Imam, who chaired the board meeting, defended officials saying it was a printing error. “There are certain mistakes in the figures which have created some confusion,” said Imam. The proposed receipt for the next financial year is about Rs 2.39 billion while the expenditure will be about Rs 2.64 billion.

The board meeting started with uproar as PMC commissioner Divesh Sehra was not present at the meeting despite taking charge on Wednesday. His deputy, N.C. Jha, who has been given additional charge as commissioner as Sehra has been selected for election-related work in Bengal, proposed the budget, much to the fury of the ward corporators.

The meeting also witnessed heated exchange between Mohammad Niyaz, corporator from ward number 50 and Mahmud Quaraishi, who represents ward number 64. Niyaz lost temper when Quaraishi accused him of flattering administrative officials.

The mayor directed the accounts department officials to immediately release Rs 10.80 crore to all four zones of the PMC so that every ward could be allotted Rs 15 lakh each for development works. This direction was given after agitating councillors said they had not received a penny in the development fund even after the last year’s budget approved it about nine months back.

“The budget has also proposed 2 per cent hike on stamp duty. The stamp duty on registration of property is 2 per cent. We have proposed this be increased to 4 per cent. The budget also proposes 2 per cent road tax on entry of vehicles in PMC area. There are proposals to collect facility tax from vendors in markets. These would generate more revenue for the PMC,”said Imam.