Deconstructing the BMC budget

What does the Rs. 33,514 crore budget of BMC, the richest municipal corporation in Asia, mean for the western suburbs? The civic problems lie especially in the areas of bad roads, hawkers and slums, traffic jams, health and sanitation, waste segregation, education, open spaces and illegal construction.

Starting with bad roads, the budget keeps Rs. 3,200 crore for building new roads. But last year, half of the budgeted amount remained unspent. This happens because the BMC still focuses on awarding road repair contracts to strictly the lowest bidder and not necessarily those, who have a proven record of doing work on par with international standards. For God's sake, choose the best company, pay them the best and give citizens the best.

Illegally operating hawkers and slums add to the woes of the suburbs. While slums are mainly a subject that the state deals with, the BMC has allotted Rs. 447.64 crore for upgrading slums. With the abolition of octroi (the major revenue earner for BMC), it has laid the increasing property tax on buildings. We've pointed out that 70 per cent of Mumbai is made up of slums that don't pay property tax but are entitled to free slum rehab schemes of the state government. We've suggested a nominal tax on legal slums and not burdening legal buildings alone. Hence, if the BMC taxes slums, they have to provide them basic amenities too.
To deal with the hawkers, BMC has set aside Rs. 3 crore to develop a GPS-based software to track and map them. But tracking illegal hawkers doesn't eliminate them. The fines collected must increase in quantum. Many activists would prefer hawking plazas owned by the BMC akin to malls. For example, legal hawkers are moved to Hill Road and Linking Road, while ensuring zero tolerance towards the new ones on public footpaths.

Finally, the BMC has woken up to the fact that women need more public toilets and has set aside Rs. 5.25 crore for the same, which I feel is abysmally low. Consider this—they have set aside Rs. 40 crore for the expansion of the Bhau Daji Lad museum and here lies the irony—women form 50 per cent of the populace. Seventy per cent live in slums along the coastline with a majority of the ladies having to wait till dark before relieving themselves in the open. This has led to most of them suffering from urinary tract infection. Besides, a person defecating the sea face pollutes the sea directly.
In the 60s and 70s, health used to be allocated 30 per cent of the BMC budget. But this time, it is down to just 10 per cent despite the fact that Mumbai is bursting at the seams with increasing population.

Waste segregation is quite high in the suburbs due to many citizen groups propagating it. Unfortunately, today, dry waste is collected by NGOs who process it, while the BMC struggles with overflowing facilities at the dumping grounds. The dumping ground proposed at Taloja should address this. The BMC has also made a provision of Rs. 21 crore to set up decentralised waste processing units and additional dry waste sorting centres.

The Rs. 2,500 crore set aside for education should gladden us as most civic schools act like crèches, with children not even reaching the SSC level or remaining unexposed to English medium of education required in today's global job marketplace. Hence, if this amount is used for more English medium schools up to SSC, it would be welcomed by all.

More budgeting for open spaces is always high on the suburban activist wish list and here the decision of CM Devendra Fadnavis to develop more open spaces, 62 plots to be precise, with Rs. 417 crore set aside for garden department is welcome. However, in the H/W ward alone, a part of the budget set aside for open spaces in the past has always gone back unspent.
Finally, the biggest problem the suburbs face is in the sphere of illegal construction of new buildings, existing ones and in gaothan areas. Here, we are met with a deafening silence with no specific major announcement made to stop rectify the situation.
The Rs. 33,514 crore budget is a mindboggling one but spending that wisely is what will determine the success or failure of the BMC. I hope they succeed because if they succeed, the idea of a new Mumbai will too.