New Delhi: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the richest civic body in the country, presented its annual budget for financial year 2018-19 on Wednesday. The total outlay has been kept at Rs 27,258 crore this year, an increase of 8.42 per cent from the previous financial year. This was the first budget after the rollout of the Goods and Services Tax. This is crucial as octroi, which was abolished after GST came into force, was a major source of income for civic bodies.
Here are a few highlights from the budget:
1. Municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta said that no new tax or no hike in existing tax has been proposed in the budget. Till last week, property tax collected in 2017-18 was Rs 3,320 crore—the target is Rs 5,200 crore. The BMC estimates that it will collect another Rs 5,180 crore as tax on water and sewage.
2. In a push for infrastructure, the BMC will spend Rs 590 crore on mastic and asphalt roads and Rs 434 crore on cement concrete roads in 2018-19. Another Rs 1,500 crore will be spent on a coastal road, which is expected to significantly ease travel from south Mumbai to the northern suburbs. Rs 100 crore have also been set aside for Goregaon-Mulund Link Road.
3. Women-centric schemes were also a major part of the budget. The BMC has set aside Rs 13 crore for working women's hostels. Mehta announced that the civic body will also install 381 sanitary napkin vending machines in schools. He added that 97 women will also join the Mumbai fire brigade. "It gives me great pride to state that 97 female fire brigade officers have completed their training, and will join the service soon," Mehta said.
4. Environment - BMC will set up seven sewage treatment centres and has set aside Rs 538 crore for the purpose. This is significant as a large amount of sewage is currently dumped into Mumbai's Mithi river. The civic body also plans to use floating trash brooms to reduce garbage from sea. These will be installed at Dahisar, Poisar, Oshiwara and the Mithi river. Mehta said this also will prevent beaches from being littered with garbage.
5. Education sees greater outlay - The BMC has allocated an amount of Rs 2569.35 crore for education in 2018-19. This is an increase of Rs 257 crore from the previous financial year. It has proposed to start 35 new schools under public-private partnership in areas where schools closed on account of decreasing or zero student strength. These schools will be affiliated to CBSE, IB, Cambridge, CISCE boards. As part of the state's international board, 24 BMC schools (one in each ward) will be started. Rs 25 lakh has been allocated for each of them.
Apart from the above, several other key decisions like modernization of the fire brigade for Rs 180 crore and Rs 11.69 crore for disaster management were announced. The BMC has proposed Rs 1 crore for setting up e-libraries, which will be started on an experimental basis. The Mumbai civic body has also announced a provision of Rs 28 crore for installing LED lights across the city.
For hospitals, the BMC has set aside a sum of Rs 61 crore for providing medicines and equipment in civic-run hospitals in the suburbs. Civic chief Ajoy Mehta said that the objective of this is to reduce the burden on major hospitals.
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