KHULNA: The annual budget of Khulna City Corporation (KCC) for the fiscal year 2022-2023 was announced on Thursday. The proposed budget amount was Tk 861 crore 06 lakh 27 thousand will be spent in different sectors of the city corporation, which was Tk 608 crore 02 lakh 56 thousand in the outgoing fiscal.
KCC Mayor Talukder Abdul Khaleque formally announced the proposed budget at the conference room of Nagar Bhaban under Sadar thana in the city at around 12noon. This is Khaleque’s fourth budget after being elected as KCC mayor on May 15, 2018.
No new tax has been imposed in the new budget termed by the mayor as a development-oriented one depending on realisation of the outstanding municipal taxes and expanding sources of income.
The corporation has set a target of Tk 192.11 crore for revenue collection of the ongoing fiscal. In addition, the corporation hopes to get 668.94 crore from the government’s development grants including especial grants and foreign funded projects, the mayor said.
The proposed budget has allocated Tk 186.20 crore for approved projects of different donor organisations including Asian Development Bank (ADB), German Development Bank (KFW), UNDP, UNICEF, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, World Bank, GIZ, BRAC, etc, the city father added.
Khaleque said, “The new budget will provide necessary fund to ensure better living of Khulna city dwellers by solving menacing water logging problem, eradicating breeding places of mosquitoes, containing price spiral of essential commodities, recovering all canals from grip of encroachers, construction of new and repair of damaged roads and modernising drainage system.”
Mayor while announcing the proposed budget said, “We need full-length support of the government for successful implementation of the adopted projects.” He sought cooperation from the city dwellers, civil society, as well as journalists to attain the goals within the proposed budget this fiscal.
They said that the budget aims at developing the riverine divisional city of over 15 lakh people living in 45.65 square km area in 31 wards.
Mayor also gave assurance that the city councilors would try their level best to help develop the city and ease the sufferings of the people. Panel mayors, ward councilors, female (reserve) councilors and officials concerned, local journalists, leaders of different professional, elite and senior citizens were present at the press conference.
