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ShareHealth and education to get a substantial boost; sizeable amount will be given for water projects
Municipal commissioner Jairaj Phatak is expected to present BMC's annual municipal budget before BMC's general body meeting on June 5.
The budget presentation suffered a four-month delay because of the BMC elections. BMC officials are confident that provisions this year will comfortably scale Rs. 10,225 crore, the corresponding estimate during the last financial year. This excludes estimates for Brihanmumbai Electric Supply Transport (BEST).
With the BMC lagging behind the private sector in education and health facilities, the two sectors are expected to get a substantial boost in the budget.
Additional municipal commissioner Kishore Gajbhiye at a recent press briefing, said, "The education budget was expected to be upped to Rs 1253 crore, a good 60.0 per cent increase over last year's provision of Rs. 780 crore. The health budget, meanwhile, is expected to around Rs 938 crore. The corresponding amount last year was Rs 801.22 crore."
Many of the 1147 municipal primary schools and 47 secondary schools are in precarious condition. At least 87 among them will undergo repairs in the current year.
The BMC has also proposed to initiate 84 model English-medium public schools. The schools will start at Jr KG/ sr KG level and one class up to Grade X will be added each year.
To plug the high drop-out ratio of 32 per cent in BMC schools, the administration has proposed to spend Rs 1.70 crore oninitiatives like free uniforms, books, shoes, tiffin box, water bottles and flavoured milk for 3.80 lakh municipal students.
In the health sector, the focus will be on restructuring of secondary and tertiary care centres. The overlooked maternity homes, 27, and peripheral hospitals, 16, are expected to get a facelift.
Eighteen more operation theatres are to be made operational in peripheral hospitals. Gajbhiye claimed all hospitals would have ICUs by the year-end. The BMC is also expected to put aside a sizeable chunk of amount for infrastructure and water-supply projects.
In the last year's budget provisions, then municipal commissioner Johny Joseph made wholesale provisions for disaster rescue efforts. Upgradation of the disaster management cell and facilities provided to firemen (Rs 111.34 crore) featured prominently, along with, mega projects like road concretization (Rs 327.51 crore) and asphalting (Rs 239.08 crore). The administration will also table a performance report on the works carried out during the last fiscal year.
