Thiruvananthapuram – Due to the government’s decision to reduce the building permit fee by more than 60 percent, the budgets passed by 1034 local bodies in the state are in crisis. The local bodies are worried that the presented surplus budgets will lead to a deficit budget, which will pave the way for a constitutional crisis.

The local people’s representatives are raising the allegation that the government forced the local bodies to collect higher permit fees and then eased them into a crisis. After the defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, the government relaxed the permit fee as part of the corrective measures.

941 Panchayats, 87 Municipal Corporations and 6 Corporations have prepared the budget for this financial year taking into account the expected income from fees for permit, application and scrutiny for layout approval. As fees decrease, expected returns decrease. The government’s decision to give a 5% rebate if property tax on buildings is paid to the local body at the beginning of April of the respective financial year will also reduce the revenue.

According to this, a commercial enterprise paying tax of Rs.1 lakh will have to give a rebate of Rs.5000. The reason for the crisis is that no solution has been proposed to overcome the impact on the private income. All the local bodies have presented their budgets before April. According to the Kerala Panchayat Raj and Kerala Municipality Acts, local bodies are required to present a surplus budget. This is a constitutional obligation. Things are moving towards a situation where the budget has to be presented again.