AMC's draft budget aims for cleaner, greener Ahmedabad

The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) on Tuesday announced a Rs7,509-crore budget for the year 2019-20 with a focus on tackling issues such as traffic, pollution, and making Ahmedabad a clean city.

Announcing the budget, Municipal Commissioner Vijay Nehra cited traffic, air pollution, the Pirana dump site, Sabarmati river pollution, and cleanliness as major challenges before the city.

“We have addressed these issues in the draft budget. We will undertake capping of Pirana with an expenditure of Rs300 crore, and make Sabarmati pollution-free with an estimated expenditure of Rs500 crore. We are also focusing on electric mobility, and will acquire 1,000 electric buses in three years,” Nehra told reporters.

AMC proposed to spend Rs500 crore for building five multi-level parkings, Rs446 crore for water, Rs457 crore for roads, Rs260 crore for bridges and flyovers, and other works. 

A number of projects for promoting sports have also been proposed in the budget, he said.

“Our goal is to make Ahmedabad the cleanest city in the country by October 2, 2019, and among the top 5 Smart cities, while maintaining its identity as a Heritage City,” said Nehra.

The budget pegged revenue income for the coming year at Rs5,197 crore, of which Rs1,490 crore is expected state government grant in lieu of octroi.

The corporation said that it aims to increase power generation from the existing 8.4 megawatts to 44 MW, of which 25 MW would be waste to energy. The corporation would build around 9,700 LIG and EWS houses, and 10,430 other houses in 35 slum areas.