New Delhi: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Friday presented its highest-ever budget with an outlay of Rs 59,954.75 crore for the financial year 2024-25, emphasising on infrastructure creation and climate action, the two main points being flagged by the opposition Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) in the metropolis.
The budget has incorporated all of CM Shinde’s pet projects including beautification of Mumbai, deep cleaning drive and set aside Rs 3,200 crore for roads and bridges, some of which are this government’s showpiece projects.
This is the third BMC budget since 1985 without having a general body in place. The term of the BMC expired on March 7, 2022. The country’s richest civic body is now under a state-appointed administrator.
The BMC’s education budget is proposed at Rs 3,497.82 crore as against Rs 3,370 crore last year. The civic body intends to start four new CBSE schools in the coming year.
The health budget is pegged at Rs 1,716.85 crore against Rs 1,384.04 crore last year.
Meanwhile, the dues of Rs 5,946.3 crore from the state government are yet to be recovered despite it having an administrative rule. Financial reserves of the BMC are down from Rs 88,216 crore in 31 December, 2022 to Rs 84,824 crore n December 31, 2023.
A key highlight of the budget is the introduction of ‘Green Budget’ (Climate budget) — a new concept amid deteriorating air quality in Mumbai.
“This year, too, we are continuing with the trend of more capital expenditure versus revenue expenditure. Last year it was 51 percent capex versus 49 percent revenue expenditure. But this year, it has increased to 53 percent of our total budget,” BMC commissioner and administrator Iqbal Singh Chahal said, presenting the budget.
Sena UBT MLA Aaditya Thackeray has been slamming the BMC over alleged scams, be it those related to road, furniture, sanitary pads vending machine, or roads contracts. He has also questioned the BMC’s inability to control bad air pollution and not caring enough for the environment.
Thackeray slammed Chahal for passing the Rs 60,000 crore budget without public representatives in place.
“The BJP’s philosophy of looting the city and making them bow down to the Centre, otherwise Mumbai never had to ask anything to the Centre or the state. Today, the idea is to make the city bow down to the Centre. Basically, they want to make the BMC completely dependent,” he told ThePrint.
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Green budget & big-ticket projects
Mumbai since last year is under the scanner for bad air pollution, with air quality index (AQI) even at times surpassing that of Delhi’s. After facing flak, the BMC started a deep cleaning exercise wherein roads are washed as part of efforts to curb air pollution.
There is again an emphasis on the Mumbai Climate Action plan, that the BMC proposed last year. This includes forming an environment cell, a growing fleet of electric buses, among others.
Shinde’s another pet project, Mumbai beautification, will be continued this year, too. This includes beautification of traffic islands, lighting up the street, skywalk electrification, resurfacing of roads.
Chahal said Rs 1,930 crore for the beautification work has been proposed for this year. Apart from that, an increased budgetary provision of Rs 1,870 has been proposed for the Goregaon-Mulund Link Road, as against last year’s Rs 1,160 crore.
Along with it, a budgetary provision for Mumbai Coastal Road (Versova Interchange to Dahisar Interchange) and GMLR connector was proposed at Rs 2,960 crore against Rs 2,774.20 crore last year.
However, the BMC budget document states that major infrastructure projects like Coastal road, GMLR, Versova Dahisar Link Road require huge expenditure. “To maintain these projects, the BMC intends to carry out financial study by appointing a consultant to explore the possibility of self-sustainability of these projects,” the document reads.
Thackeray suspects this means that the BMC would impose toll or taxes post elections.
“There is a provision in the budget that the BMC will look at the financial feasibility of these projects’ self-sustainability, which means they will start putting tolls or add taxes. For 25 years when we took the surplus to Rs 9,5000 crore as FDs, the idea was to keep it self-sustaining without increasing taxes for Mumbaikars. This means after the election, the BJP-led government will add taxes on Mumbaikars,” he told ThePrint.
Apart from these projects, Rs.3,200 crore has been earmarked for roads and highways against Rs.2,561.98 crore last year.
Another project that found a mention was the zero prescription policy, which the BMC had in November last year announced. The patients will not have to purchase a single medicine from drug stores outside civic hospitals.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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