BMC to present budget today, focus likely on health and education

Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) budget for 2021-22 will focus on key areas like health infrastructure, education, tourism and completion of coastal projects. The budget is unlikely to introduce new taxes for Mumbaiites.

Mumbai: Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the country’s richest municipal body, will present its budget today with its focus to upgrade its city's health infrastructure which is grappled by the coronavirus outbreak. According to sources, the civic body is unlikely to increase any tax on the citizens and the focus will be the completion of the ongoing projects which were affected due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. The budget is expected to have its focus on augmenting the health infrastructure as done in the Union Budget.

BMC, which is facing a cash crunch, is likely to prioritise expenditure on health, infrastructure, education, tourism and coastal river projects. It is expected that there will be 8% to 10% increase in the budget.

The civic body will focus on the beautification of Meethi river and further development of traffic lights. The officials also said that special attention will be given to the construction of the sea-facing museum and making Gateway of India green zone.

The budget will prioritise completion of coastal projects by 2023 and construction of ICSE and CBSE schools by the civic body itself.

With special attention to health infrastructure, special hospitals will be built to tackle grappling health infrastructure. The BMC budget 2020-21 was pegged at Rs. 33,441.02 crore and it is expected that outlay of 2021-22 budget is likely to increase.

According to officials, considering it to be an election year, BMC would exempt property tax for homes having up to 500 sq feet.

Mayor Kishori Pednekar has said that nothing has been given to Mumbai from the central budget but BMC will focus on various key areas.

BMC's leader of opposition Ravi Raja said all information on how the work was done and how it was funded should be submitted to the Standing Committee and the Municipal Council.