The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Saturday presented Rs 52,619.07 crore budget for the year 2023-24.

The budget estimates this time are 14.52 per cent more than the 2022-23 amount.

The budget was presented to municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal, who is the state-appointed administrator of the civic body.

“The budget estimates for the financial year 2023-24 are proposed to Rs 52,619.07 crore, which exceeds the budget estimates of 2022-23, that is Rs 45,949.21 crore, by 14.52 per cent,” the budget document states.

This is for the first time after 1985 that the administration of the richest municipal body in the country presented the budget to an administrator as the five-year term of its corporators came to end on March 7, 2022.

The BMC, in its Budget 2023-24, has announced the `Mumbai Clean Air Initiative` that will work towards three broad goals — curb pollution concentration, initiate a multi-level monitoring strategy for the city and decentralise planning and community health awareness to reduce personal exposure.

Also Read: BMC Budget 2023: From infrastructure to pollution control measures, here are some key highlights

To control air pollution in the city, the civic body has planned to install air purifiers in five most-crowded areas in the city — Dahisar Toll  Naka, Mulund Check Naka, Mankhurd, Kalanagar Junction and Haji Ali Junction.

In the financial year 2021-22, property tax has been collected in the same manner as in 2019-20 and the actual income from property tax was Rs 5207.99 crore. In the financial year 2022-23, revenue from property tax was estimated to be Rs 7000 crore which is revised to Rs 4800 crore, a fall by Rs 2200 crore. The actual income received upto December 31, 2022 is Rs 3174.46 crore.

Meanwhile, the budget estimate for education for 2023-2024 has marginally reduced to Rs 3,347 crore as against last year’s Rs 3,370 crore.

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 Rs 50,000 crore-mark.”

In the budget, the civic administration has allocated Rs 27,247.80 crore towards capital expenditure and Rs 25,305.94 crore towards revenue expenditure.

Chahal also said that it is for the first time that the civic body is 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, Rs 3,545 crore have been allocated for the ambitious Coastal Road project that is expected to complete this year end, while Rs 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 Rs 2,825 crore for traffic operations and roads projects.

The actual capital expenditure of Rs 8,398.35 crore is 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.

The polls to the BMC are pending. The elections got delayed due to factors like the coronavirus pandemic, delimitation of wards and OBC quota.

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