BMC's budget stresses on ease of living this year

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s budget estimates for financial year 2022-23 were announced at Rs 45949.21 crore - an increase of 17.70% as compared to the previous financial year’s budget estimates, which stood at Rs 39038.83 crore.

Mumbai Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal presented the civic body’s budget at the BMC headquarters in south Mumbai on Thursday morning, in the presence of Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar and other high ranking civic officials.

“This year onwards, BMC will be focussing on ‘Ease of Living’ for its citizens in addition to ‘Quality of Living’. BMC has started the process of empanelment of Urban Space Designers who would study and rework on the roads, foot paths and community spaces to increase the ‘Ease of Walking’. The Ease of Safety on the streets will be improved by installation of street lights in locations where they are needed in more numbers giving safety to citizens including women and children,” Chahal said in his budget speech.

Additional measures undertaken towards this end include cement-concrete roads and new bridges to improve the ‘Ease of Commute’ within the City.

“The BMC has been working on a very high number of Infrastructure projects like never before. The capital expenditure on these infrastructure works is close Rs 16,800 crore in 2021-22, which is almost double of what was spent on infrastructure three years back in a year. I propose to keep the infrastructure sector spending high to make it possible for our citizens to secure higher levels of both ‘Quality of Living’ and ‘Ease of Living’. We want to focus on the younger generation and give the best to them to prepare themselves for the future and hence the budget outlay for Education has been increased tremendously this year,” Chahal said, adding that Rs 6933 crore has been allocated towards the health infrastructure outlay this year.

According to the data released by the BMC, the budget estimates of revenue income for the financial year 2021-22 was Rs 27811.57 crore, which was revised to Rs 37538.41 crore, while the actual income received up to January 31 this year stood at Rs 30851.18 crore. Meanwhile, the estimated Revenue Income for financial year 2022-23 is proposed at Rs 30743.61 crore, an increase of Rs 2932.04 crore than last year’s dudget estimates.

Civic officials stated that the major sources of revenue for 2022-23 would be a grant-in-aid of Rs 11429.73 crore on account of compensation in lieu of Octroi, an income of Rs 7000 crore from property tax, an income of Rs 3950 crore from the Development Planning Department, an income of Rs 1128.74 crore from interest on investments and an income of Rs 1596.93 crore from water & sewage sharges.

The BMC had recently announced relief to residential property of 500 sq.ft. or less carpet area. About 16,14,000 citizens will get 100% relief from Property Tax payment and the amount of exemption to the citizens is to the extent of Rs 462 crore per annum.

The civic body has placed great importance on the ongoing infrastructure projects in the city this year, with a total allocation of Rs 17,942.96 crore being made towards the same. Of this, the Coastal Road project has been allocated a sum of Rs 3200 crore, while an allocation of Rs 1300 crore has been made for the Goregaon Mulund Link Road. The BMC has also allocated Rs 1340 crore for the Mumbai Sewage Disposal Project.

“The completion of these significant projects will be hampered, if sufficient funds are not made available during ensuing years. Therefore, necessity of raising internal loans to meet out the expenditure on these projects has arisen. As such, it is proposed to raise Rs 4998 crore by way of internal loan during 2022-23. Also, policy to undertake only high priority works will be exercised so that the projects in pipeline will not be hampered in any way due to paucity of funds,” Chahal said.

Meanwhile, a provision of Rs 800 crore is proposed in this year’s Budget for the Brihanmumbai Electricity and Transport (BEST) Undertaking, while a budget provision of Rs 10 crore has been made for the Business Development Department under the Ease of Doing Business plans. On the income side, the BMC is exploring additional sources of revenue income by allowing digital advertisements.

“During the pandemic of Covid-19, BMC has expended huge amount on various measures adopted to tide over pandemic. A claim of Rs 1417.32 crore and Rs 1347.56 crore for the expenditure upto 30.09.2021 is submitted to the District Collector, Mumbai City District and the District Collector, Mumbai Suburban District respectively for reimbursement from State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF),”the civic chief said.

The BMC is also exploring use of information technology (IT) for better functioning of its departments, including the possible use of Geographical Information System (GIS) in fields like urban planning, town planning, urban forestry, environment protection and disaster management. The BMC’s IT department has undertaken projects for the effective use of GIS and a total budget estimate of Rs 78.76 crore is proposed for the IT Department.

“I have to state that perilious situation of Covid-19 pandemic still exists. Though we have to expend sizable funds continuously this year also on all healthcare facilities, I have emphasize that we will take all efforts for execution of all important projects in the schedules time and with due consideration to the financial cash flow situation. Also, efforts will be taken to increase revenue collection from existing sources as well new revenue sources will be explored. We will take due care to provide uninterrupted health services as well as upgradation of existing infrastructural facility and execution of new infrastructural facility for healthy & happy livelihood of citizens of Mumbai,” Chahal concluded.