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BMC budget at Rs 33,441.02 cr, no increase in general tax
There was an announcement of a 5% increase in charges for municipal services such as trade license and birth certificate.
The country’s richest civic body, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), on Tuesday announced it’s budget 2020-21 pegged at Rs 33,441.02 crore or 8.95% more than last year’s budget.
Municipal Commissioner Praveen Pardeshi tabled the budget before the civic standing committee on Tuesday afternoon. The budget for 2019-20 was pegged at Rs 30,692.59 crore.
While there is no increase in general tax by BMC, fees for municipal services such as trade licenses, market license, and obtaining the birth certificate will see an increase of flat 5% per year.
The budget focuses on infrastructure projects and civic amenities and has allotted Rs 14,637.78 crore for capital expenditure. This money will be used for infrastructure projects, roads, improving drinking water supply, and other municipal services.
It includes Rs 2000 crore allotted for its ambitious Coastal Road project, Rs 300 crore for the Goregaon Mulund Link Road, Rs 503.51 crore for the Gargai dam project. The allocation for the Coastal Road is 25% more than that of Rs 1600 crore last year in 2019-2020.
For the construction and maintenance of civic roads, BMC has allocated Rs 1600 crore in 2020-2021 budget.
Budgetary allocation for both health and education departments have seen a considerable increase.
The budget has allotted Rs 2944.59 crore for the education department, which is 7.71% more than last year’s allocation, and Rs 4260.34 crore for the health department, 14% more than last year’s revised estimates for the department.
Municipal commissioner Pardeshi’s Vision 2030 for Mumbai has found a special mention in the budget 2020-21 and includes providing world-class roads, pure drinking water, environmentally sustainable city.
The creation of a separate department for tourism was also announced in the BMC budget. The new department will look over ecotourism activities around water supply reservoirs.
