BMC Budget 2021-22 explained in 11 charts

Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), India’s richest civic body, on Wednesday, unveiled a Rs 39,038.83 crore budget for the financial year 2021-22. BMC commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal presented the budget before the civic standing committee. Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar said the budget focuses on the overall development of Mumbai and includes various development works. The opposition parties, however, criticised the budget. Image source: Twitter/@mybmc

The BMC has allocated Rs 200 crore for the beautification of footpaths, traffic islands, spaces below flyovers and the Mumbai Street Food Hub project among other infra projects. While some projects have been kept, others are yet to be delivered. GFX by Reema Mukherjee/ TIL

Major tunnelling work on the 9-kilometer-long Coastal Road between Mumbai's Princess Street Flyover and Worli has already begun. For the next 18 months, about 100 workers will drill day and night daily to complete the tunnelling by June 2022. The entire coastal road is expected to get ready by mid-2023. The overall tunnelling work is expected to take 18 months. The BMC has set a deadline of June 2022 for the completion of the tunnelling work. There will be tunnels for both up towards south Mumbai and down towards Worli end. Boring work for each tunnel will take around nine months. GFX by Reema Mukherjee/ TIL

Rs. 1.300 crore has been allotted to Goregaon-Mulund Link Road (GMLR) project. It is a mega-project aimed to improve connectivity between the east and the west. When completed, the GMLR will be a huge relief to the existing traffic congestions on the three link roads in MMR and on Ghodbunder Road in Thane. GFX by Reema Mukherjee/ TIL

Several projects of the BMC, including the cycling track on both sides of the pipeline between Bhandup and Sion, are developing at a snail's pace. This project has missed the 2020 deadline though over Rs 400 crore has been allotted in the last three budgets. GFX by Reema Mukherjee/ TIL

The BMC’s Miyawaki urban forest project silently gathered evidence of its success during the lockdown. In the past six months, saplings have turned into mid-size trees, surprising even the activists who had raised a din over the civic body spending Rs 35 crore on planting trees in open spaces. GFX by Reema Mukherjee/ TIL

The civic body's estimated budget stands at Rs 39,038.83 crore. The total budget estimates for the next financial year are 16.74 per cent more than the last fiscal (2020-21) when it had presented a budget of Rs 33,441 crore. It may be mentioned that only 48 per cent of last year's allocation could be spent on various development projects, due to the raging Covid-19 pandemic.

The civic body is expecting revenue of Rs 27,811.57 crore from various sources, including property tax, water and sewage charges, various grants from the government, compensation in lieu of octroi and DP fees, which is Rs 636 crore less as compared to the Rs 22,448 crore estimated revenue of FY 2020-21. The BMC plans to dip into its fixed deposit reserves to raise Rs 4,688 crore and take a Rs 5,876-crore internal loan to meet budget expectations.

The slowdown in real estate deprived the corporation of its biggest income sources – so far, property tax collected this year is a mere 17 per cent of the targeted Rs 6,768 crore and building development charges are 70 per cent less than the estimated Rs 3,880 crore. Despite this crunch, the budget has increased to Rs 39,038 crore, nearly 17 per cent over last year's outlay. The BMC said it had earlier estimated Rs 6,768.58 crore revenue from property tax, but the pandemic forced it to later revise it to Rs 4,500 crore, due to which its income reduced by Rs 2268.58 crore. Similarly, the revenue from the Development Plan (DP) department decreased to Rs 2,679.52 crore, from the estimated Rs 3,879 crore due to the pandemic, lockdown and slow-down in the real estate sector, it said. Chahal, however, said, “The drop in property tax collection is a temporary phase and the BMC expects that it will come to normalcy in the near future.”

The BMC chief said that the civic body is facing various difficulties due to the pandemic, such as increased expenditure amid reduced revenue. Each year, the BMC sets a target for dipping into its fixed deposits to meet the estimated budget target, though it rarely makes withdrawals.

Dipping into reserves to meet a gaping shortfall in revenue, Chahal has announced a big upgrade of public health facilities, including a new building for treating infectious diseases. The health allocation of over Rs 4,000 crore, which has increased by 11 per cent, will be used to upgrade civic hospitals and other facilities in Mumbai. A new building for treating infectious diseases in Kasturba Hospital will also be built.