Infrastructure projects get budget boost

MUMBAI: Mumbai’s municipal commissioner Praveen Pardeshi presented the city’s 2020-21 budget on Tuesday.

India’s richest municipality’s budget for the year was pegged at ~33,441.02 crore as against the previous year’s allocation of ~30,692.59 crore, an increase of 8.95%.

A significant portion of this is establishment expense, which includes salaries and pensions, and has been allocated ~10,920 crore.

This year’s focus has been on infrastructure projects, including the Mumbai Coastal Road and the Gargai dam.

The former is a 29-km freeway to be constructed along the city’s western coastline as a south-north corridor spanning Marine Drive in south Mumbai to Kandivli in the north.

The project has been given ~2,000 crore for the year, as against a t ot al e s t i mate of ~ 1 2 , 0 0 0 c r o r e . The r o a d i s expected to be complete by the mid-2020s.

The second big project for the year (~503.51 crore) is likely to be Gargai dam, designed to enhance the city’s water supply by up to 440 million litres a day. At present, Mumbai’s daily requirement is at 3,900 million litres a day, but its sources — seven lakes in and around the city — provide only 3,100 million litres a day, leading to a shortfall.

Two major heads that the BMC spends significantly on every year is primary education and health.

This year’s budgetary allocation for education is ~2,944.59 crore; for health, it is ~4260.34 crore.

Project in focus: Mumbai Coastal Road with a budget of ~2,000 crore