Terming the BMC budget as 'Contract and Contractor Driven', the Aam Aadmi Party today slammed the Shiv Sena led BMC for its lack of focus on improving the standard of living of Mumbaikars.
"The cash-rich BMC is the fountainhead of all corruption in Maharashtra, is an open secret and is validated by the lived experience of 1.5 Crore Mumbaikars," added AAP.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the richest civic body in the country, on Thursday presented a budget of Rs 45,949.21 crore for the year 2022-23, ahead of the civic elections.
The budget estimates are 17.70 per cent more than the last fiscal when the BMC had presented a Rs 39,038.83 crore budget.
"Despite the massive revenue shortfall, the budgetary estimate for the financial year 2022-23 has been pegged at ₹45,949 crore, which is 17.10% higher than that of the budget for FY 2020-21 (₹ 39,038.83 crore)," the political party added.
AAP also asked where is this additional money going to come from? "As stated by the municipal commissioner, we will be dipping into our reserves, while also taking additional loans, thus further burdening the exchequer, without demonstrated capacity to actually spend it," it noted.
"Huge budget outlays mean nothing when only 48% of the last fiscal year 2021-2022 budget was actually utilized. This has been happening year after year, for the past several years, where the BMC has been consistently unable to spend its budget outlay, despite making provisions for it. It speaks volumes of the BMC's ineptitude and poor capacity to execute projects that have already been budgeted for. We demand that like the Delhi Govt, the BMC must also present an Outcome budget to state what was achieved in the previous year, else this entire announcement is useless", said Ruben Mascarenhas, Mumbai Working President of the Aam Aadmi Party.
"This budget has nothing for those living in slums, who make up the vast majority of Mumbai's population. Mumbai has poor physical infrastructure like roads, footpaths, water and sewage lines, degrading natural infrastructure and crumbling social infrastructure like education, healthcare and lack of public conveniences" he added.
BMC has to think beyond these band-aid efforts of fixing a failed system. Why can't BMC simply replicate, Delhi's successful model of Universal Healthcare through Mohalla clinics within 1km, where diagnostic tests and medicines are free, for every Mumbaikar?", said Preeti Sharma Menon, National Executive member and AAP Mumbai Prabhari.
Check other points from the criticism by the political party below:
One would have thought that the recent covid pandemic and its aftermath, would have served as a wake-up call to the civic administration, but this budget has proved otherwise and is nothing a string of 'misplaced priorities'
BMC's allocation to the education department is ₹3370 Crores, which is a mere 7.33% of our budget and reeks of vast under allocation. Our Govt in Delhi spends 25% of 69000 crores - 16377 crores
That's why Delhi's 17 lakh+ students are thriving, while BMC schools keep closing with less than 3 lakh students left.
