BMC budget focuses on infra, amenities

Amenities such as roads, water supply and garbage collection continued to take centre stage in the civic budget announced on Monday.

Amenities such as roads, water supply and garbage collection continued to take centre stage in the civic budget announced on Monday.

HT Image

From reviving the leak detection units to concretising roads, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) budget has focused on allocating funds for old, ongoing projects.

In a significant boost, the budget has promised to bring additional water from the Middle Vaitarna dam project from October this year. This means, 380 million litres of water would be added to the city's supply.

Initiatives have also been planned to bring down the estimated 700 million litres of water that is lost every day due to leakages and thefts.

While the civic body proposed reviving the leak detection units in every ward, a comprehensive programme, the Water Distribution Improvement Programme, has been launched to achieve equitable distribution and effective management of water supply.

For roads, the BMC has increased its budget by 10%, as compared to 105% last year.

The long-term plan for total concretisation of roads has been expedited and the total length of roads planned under this has been increased to 250 lane-km from 241 lane-km.

Also, a provision of Rs6.75 crore has been made to reduce surcharge of sewers and renew pipelines in house gullies to reduce instances of water contamination in south Mumbai.

The BMC also wants to generate revenue from underground utilities. The civic body expects to generate revenue of Rs200 crore by levying access charges to the agencies for using the space below city roads. A two-year plan has been announced to achieve waste segregation at source and house-to-house collection.