The Hamro Party-led Darjeeling municipality on Thursday issued an apology and made public its finance reports for the months of July and August.

The reports were made public on a day The Telegraph published a report that questions were being raised on Hamro Party’s pre-poll transparency slogan as the body had failed to make the finance reports public for the last two months.

Bishnu Malla, member-in-council, finance, of Darjeeling municipality, said: “At the onset I want to apologise for not being able to provide the finance report due to various reasons. Today, I will make public the reports of two months, July and August.”

According to the report, the total income of the civic board in the month of July was Rs 56 lakh and the expenditure stood at Rs 53 lakh, leaving the Darjeeling municipality with a closing amount of Rs 38 lakh at the end of July.

In August, the income was Rs 53 lakh while expenditure stood at Rs 43 lakh, leaving the closing balance at Rs 34 lakh at the end of the month.

Malla on Thursday also provided details of the expenditure including the amounts spent on wages, salaries, taxes and other heads.

Hamro Party had created a flutter in hill politics with its transparency tune and won the Darjeeling municipality elections in little over three months of its formation last year.

The new civic board immediately started issuing a finance report of the hill body, which was much appreciated across the hills. However, the civic body had stopped issuing the report after July 7 putting its transparency slogan under the scanner.

Malla also issued an appeal to residents to pay taxes.

“Many municipality tenants running shops have not paid their rents for months. They are also not responding to our notice. We will take action if we fail to receive any response by September-end,” said Malla.

He also requested businessman without a valid trade licence to do the needful. “We will start checking licences from October-and take action under the provision of law,” said Malla.