Drop in funds for gardens and disaster mgmt
Despite drop in allocation, civic body announces new plans for these depts, says focus on CSR funding for garden projects
mehul.thakkar@htlive.com
MUMBAI: While the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)’S budget size in 2021-22 for some crucial departments such as health, bridges, fire brigade have increased, the allocation for some others such as the disaster management, water supply projects, market, and garden and zoo departments have seen a drop.
On February 3, BMC presented a budget of ₹39,038 crore for the financial year 2021-22 – up from ₹33,441 crore in 2020-21.
BMC increased its capital expenditure by about 48%-49% of the budget value, with focus on infrastructure such as coastal road, roads and bridges, several small and medium development projects, as well as on health and education departments.
The disaster management department saw a dip in the budgetary allocation from ₹50.25 crore in 2020-21 to ₹39.47 crore.
Though the allocation has gone down this fiscal, BMC has announced to conduct a risk assessment of all areas of the island city and its suburbs. The seismic microzonation, tsunami atlas and hazard vulnerability risk assessment (HVRA) will investigate the severity of the impact of disasters on various areas and on the livelihood of citizens. It will identify the threats that require a timely and coordinated response to protect lives, property and reduce socio-economic loss.
The budget size of the garden department – which handles the open spaces in the city – was reduced from ₹685 crore to ₹521 crore.
But despite the drop in allocation, BMC aims to modernise at least five gardens in each ward, as well as modernise the
Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Udyan and Zoo in Byculla. BMC has also proposed to plant 400,000 trees across 65 locations trees using the Miyawaki method.
The markets department that overlooks the construction, upgradation and maintenance of municipal markets in the city was allocated ₹180 crore, down from last fiscal’s ₹264 crore.
In the case of the water supply projects’ department, the allocation has gone down to ₹701 crore from ₹1,185 crore in 2020-21. Despite this, BMC has announced a new drinking water supply project which involves the construction of a desalination plant to turn seawater into potable water. A sum of ₹5 lakh has been allocated for the study of its construction. Commenting on the drop in allocation of certain crucial departments, additional municipal commissioner P Velrasu said, “It is better to allocate the money that will be spent. We don’t want to allocate money and not spend it. For gardens, we aim to increase our focus on maintenance and construction via corporate social responsibility (CSR) method, through which BMC will save money and the citizens will even get the required facilities and infrastructure.”
Viraj Mamania, a civic activist from Borivli, said, “Crores are spent on gardens and open spaces every year, as there is no fund crunch in BMC. But the amenities are not maintained. Few years ago, BMC provided the city with many gardens and gym equipment, but today they are non-functional or lying in rust.”
It is better to allocate the money that will be spent. We don’t want to allocate money and not spend it.
P VELRASU , additional municipal commissioner