New Delhi: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) presented its annual Budget for the financial year 2023-24 on Saturday with a total estimated amount of Rs 52,619.07 crore. According to ANI, it s 14.52 percent higher than the Budget estimate for 2022-23 which was Rs 45,949.21 crore.
The budget was presented to municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal, who is the state-appointed administrator of the civic body, reported PTI.
“The budget estimates for the financial year 2023-24 are proposed to Rs 52,619.07 crore, which exceeds the budget estimates of 2022-23, that is Rs 45,949.21 crore, by 14.52 percent,” the budget document states.
According to PTI, this is for the first time after 1985 that the administration of the richest municipal body in the country presented the budget to an administrator as the five-year term of its corporators came to end on March 7, 2022. The Budget focuses heavily on pollution control measures.
ANI reported that BMC is planning to install air purifiers in the five most crowded areas in Dahisar and Mulund along with purchasing 35 EVs under the state government’s campaign and setting up a charging system in municipal public parking lots.
Addressing a press conference after the budget presentation, Chahal said, "This is for the first time in the history of BMC that the budget estimates have crossed the Rs 50,000 crore-mark," reported PTI.
As per the PTI report, the civic administration has allocated Rs 27,247.80 crore towards capital expenditure and Rs 25,305.94 crore towards revenue expenditure.
Chahal also said that it is for the first time that the civic body is going to spend 52 percent of the budget estimates on capital expenditure and 48 percent on revenue expenditure, the report added.
"Approximately 990 km of roads have been concretised in Mumbai till January end and we have already given a work order for concretising 397 km of roads. In the next 3 years, BMC will concretise 100% of the existing roads in Mumbai," Indian Express quoted municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal as saying.
As per the budget document, Rs 3,545 crore have been allocated for the ambitious Coastal Road project that is expected to complete by this year's end, while Rs 1,060 crore are designated for the Goregaon-Mulund Link Road, which will reduce the travel distance between Western suburbs of Mumbai and Thane city, the report said.
An amount of Rs 2,825 crore have been allotted for traffic operations and road projects.
The actual capital expenditure of Rs 8,398.35 crore is incurred up to December 2022, which is 40.26 percent of the revised estimates for FY 22-23, it said.
"Health, education, environment and transparent working are the four pillars of our budget," Chahal said.