The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will present its budget in first week of February. Now reports have surfaced saying that the civic body is not likely to introduce any new taxes or increase existing taxes.
According to Hindustan Times, this time the budget will focus on completing existing big ticket infrastructure projects, such as the coastal road, the Goregaon-Mulund link road (GMLR), and the Gargai dam drinking water supply project.
“There is definitely a financial crunch for BMC, and the budget takes that into consideration. There are sufficient resources to complete big projects that have already started such as the coastal road or GMLR. But they will eat up BMC’s deposits. To ensure deposits are not depleted in a way that BMC cannot do any essential expenditure later on, it wants to reduce recurring revenue expenditure,” a senior civic official told the Hindustan Times.
In February 2019, BMC earmarked Rs 4,151 crore for health and Rs 2,074 crore for primary education besides allocating funds for a number of infrastructure projects in its Rs 30,692-crore budget for 2019 -20 in which no new tax were proposed.
BMC commissioner Ajoy Mehta, who presented the budget, said the civic body has primarily focused on important projects and sectors like health, education, bridges, road and traffic, among others.
The cash-rich BMC in 2016-17 had presented its highest-ever budget of Rs 37,052 crore. However, it slashed the budget size by about Rs 12,000 crore in the subsequent year (2017-18) by presenting a budget of Rs 25,141 crore, calling it "realistic". For implementation of the Development Plan (DP) 2034, a separate budget of Rs 3,323.64 crore has been proposed for 2019-20 for improving amenities.
