The state government will soon upgrade 49 town panchayats in the state into town municipalities. The proposal is awaiting Cabinet approval.
Disclosing this to reporters here on Saturday, minister for municipal administration Balachandra Jarkiholi said the Cabinet would approve the proposal soon.
Similarly, there was a proposal to upgrade over 400 gram panchayats into town panchayats, the minister said.
He said the state election commission had asked the government to take a decision on the matter at the earliest to enable the commission to prepare the budget for forthcoming gram panchayat elections.
Jarkiholi said the urban local bodies in the state had succeeded in collecting 77 per cent of the tax till the end of December and expressed confidence that the target would be reached before the end of this financial year.
Reviewing the performance of urban local bodies in Dharwad, Gadag and Haveri districts, he said the property tax collection till December end was Rs 18.75 crore as against the target of Rs 37.11 crore.
The collection of water tax is also left much to be desired as the ULBs had collected only Rs 12.4 crore as against the target of Rs 58.75 crore.
The state finance commission has sanctioned a special grant of Rs 238.59 crore to three districts and the expenditure so far has been to the tune of Rs 191.81 crore.
