MUMBAI: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the richest civic body in the country, last week presented ₹ 52,619.07 crore budget for the year 2023-24, with budgetary estimates crossing the ₹ 50,000 crore-mark for the first time. BMC is the civic body for Mumbai, the capital of Maharashtra.
This was also the first time since 1985 that BMC presented the Budget to an administrator – Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal, who was appointed by the state government in March last year after the fiveyear term of corporators ended. “The Budget estimates for 2023-24 are proposed at ₹ 52,619.07 crore, which exceeds the budget estimates of 2022-23, that is ₹ 45,949.21 crore, by 14.52 per cent,” the Budget document said.
Addressing a press conference after the budget presentation, Chahal said, “This is for the first time in the history of BMC that the budget estimates have crossed the ₹ 50,000 crore-mark.” In the budget, the civic administration has allocated ₹ 27,247.80 crore towards capital expenditure and ₹ 25,305.94 crore towards revenue expenditure.
Chahal also said that it was for the first time that the civic body was going to spend 52 per cent of the budget estimates on capital expenditure and 48 per cent on revenue expenditure.
As per the Budget document, ₹ 3,545 crore have been allocated for the ambitious coastal road project that is expected to complete this year end, while ₹ 1,060 crore are earmarked for the Goregaon-Mulund Link Road, which will reduce travel distance between western suburbs of Mumbai and Thane city, and ₹ 2,825 crore for traffic operations and roads projects.
Actual capital expenditure of ₹ 8,398.35 crore has been incurred up to December 2022, which is 40.26 per cent of the revised estimates for FY 22-23, it said.
“Health, education, environment and transparent working are the four pillars of our budget,” Chahal said.
