The Barisal City Corporation is preparing to announce a Tk 250 core budget for the 2012-13 fiscal on June 30 while several hundred employees of the corporation are without salaries since February and major portion of the current budget is yet to be implemented.
BCC sources said they have 1,075 regular work forces including 22 Class I, 28 Class II officials, 241 Class III staff, 251 Class IV employees and 533 casual workers.
Salaries of those work forces pending since last three months due to fund crisis, acknowledged Nikhil Chandra Das, chief executive officer BCC.
Less collection of revenue and no increase in taxes in last budget put some stress on funds to maintain regular expenditures, BCC chief executive officer acknowledged.
BCC mayor Shawkat Hossain Hiron, however, said already one core taka for payment of the arrear salaries of the employees had been sanctioned and assured that the arrears along with salaries of the current month would be paid.
Abdul Motalib, executive engineer of the city corporation, said works of only Tk 70 core out of the Tk 190.45 core current development budget were completed and some more work would be finished within the fiscal.
Sources added that the city corporation on July 14, 2011 placed a budget of Tk 253.95 core for the 2011-12 fiscal without imposing any fresh taxes and with stress on water supply, health, sanitation, communication and entertainment development.
The revised budget was Tk 105.56 crore against the announced budget of Tk 197.72 crore for the 2010-11 fiscal while the revised budget stood at Tk 101.21 crore against the budget of Tk 272.77 crore for the 2009-10 fiscal.
About the upcoming Tk 250 crore budge against a revised budget of some Tk 100 crore, the city mayor, Shawkat Hossain Hiron, said the total revenue budget was always spent as establishment costing and the implementation of development budget depends on availability of the government and non-government grants.
The mayor, however, termed the size of the budget insufficient for providing the city dwellers with all necessary facilities and urged them to cooperate by paying taxes regularly so that the corporation could implement the proposed budget smoothly.
Most of the BCC councillors acknowledged that the announcement of the mayor to turn the city into a addiction-free and child-friendly city with healthy entertainment and amusement facilities and upgrading the corporation with necessary manpower, funds and master plan was not executed.
They pointed out health, sanitation, drainage, dilapidated conditions of city roads   and shortage of drinking water and lack of healthy entertainment facilities as the main areas of failure of BCC.
Barisal municipality was upgraded to Barisal City Corporation, with its areas extended from 25 square kilometres to 45 square kilometres in 2002 with an estimated population of more than six lakh under 30 wards.