RANGPUR: Mayor of Rangpur City Corporation (RpCC) Mostafizar Rahman Mostafa yesterday proposed Taka 1,600 crore surplus annual development budget without increasing existing taxation rates for the next 2018-2019 fiscal, reports BSS. Mostafa announced the budget in a crowded press conference arranged at his office with over Taka 39.96 crore as surplus, including Taka 6.57 crore from revenue and Taka 33.39 crore from development sectors.

The City Councilors, Chief Executive Officer of RpCC Akhter Hossain Azad, its Superintending Engineer Amdad Hossain, officials and employees and local journalists were present. Speaking on the occasion and answering various questions asked by the journalists, the city mayor said the prevailing tax rates would remain unchanged and, in some cases, be reduced by 25 per cent, in the proposed budget for the next fiscal. The proposed budget includes income of over Taka 52.60 crore from revenue earnings and over Taka 1,547 crore as development assistance from the government, different donor agencies and foreign- assisted projects. Under the proposed budget, over Taka 39.96 crore will remain as surplus after meeting all costs of over Taka 1,514 crore for infrastructural developments and other works to be conducted during the next fiscal.

Of them, the costs of over Taka 46.03 crore will be met from the revenue earnings and Taka 1,514 crore from various development assistances. In the proposed budget, special emphasis has been put on health, water supply, drainage and sewerage systems, primary health care, supply of medicines, sanitation, beautification, tree plantation, climate change adaptation and some other sectors. The proposed budget also includes allocations for education, garbage management, forestation, alleviation of urban poverty, development activities in the extended areas of 18 new wards and development of the city’s extremely poor and slum dwellers.