The civic body allocated a major chunk of the money (Rs 18,751 crore) towards infrastructure and development projects from the total Rs 39,038 crore budget outlay. In 2020-21, BMC presented a budget of Rs 33,441 crore, of which an estimated amount of Rs 11,674 crore was allotted for various development works. However, BMC could spend only 48% of the total budget till December 31, 2020. "We have hit many hurdles like court cases, clearances and then the pandemic. However as soon as things got better, work on these projects was back on track. The budget will provide a fillip to infrastructure and civic amenities. It will be completed in the four to five years,” a senior civic official said.
"A major push will be given to development projects in fiscal 2021-22 using the Rs 18,750 crore. Besides the ongoing work of 12 hospitals and 12 bridges will be completed expeditiously," Chahal said.
Like last year, the largest allocations went to the coastal road, the Goregaon Mulund Link Road (GMLR), MSDP sewage treatment plants, traffic operations department, augmentation of stormwater drains, minimising the quantum of waste at dumping ground including the waste to energy plant at Deonar.
The highest allocation (Rs 2546 crore) has gone to the Development department. While the lowest fund allocation has been given to the Gargai-Pinjal water supply projects this year.
Even this year Rs 2000 crore has been earmarked for Coastal Road project, the Goregaon-Mulund Link Road (GMLR) project was allocated Rs 1600 crore this year, the provision last year was Rs 300 crore. Gargai- Pinjal project, which will provide 440 MLD of additional water supply to Mumbai was allocated Rs. 503.51 crore, this year only 3.50 crores have been set aside for the project.
For storm-water drains Rs 1149 crore has been kept aside, while Rs 1600 have been set aside for the traffic operations, roads. Besides this for water supply projects Rs 1232 crore have been earmarked.
Interestingly the civic body even this year. continued to lay more emphasis on flood mitigation and improvement of its stormwater drains. To abate water logging in Mumbai, micro-planning for flood-prone spots across the city was done. Total Rs 150 crores have been allocated for flood redressal spots projects and Rs 1149 crores have been set aside for various capital works under the Storm water drains department.
