BMC Budget 2024-25: Here Are Key Points From The Highest Budget Ever

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), Asia’s richest civic body, on Friday, February 2, presented INR 59,954.75 crore budget for the year 2024-25.

The annual budget estimates this year is 10.5 per cent higher than the 2023-24 amount of INR 54,256.07 crore. It also slated various infrastructure projects like the Mumbai coastal road, its extensions, Goregaon twin tunnel and others along with beautification projects.

This is the second time after 1985 that the BMC administration has presented the budget to an administrator as the five-year term of its corporators has ended.

The civic administration presented the budget to municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal, who was appointed as BMC administrator by the state government after the five-year term of corporators ended in March 2022.

Here are key points from the budget:

• Chahal’s budget speech began with an emphasis on the deep-cleaning drive, beautification project, the chief minister’s clean Mumbai helpline, infrastructure projects, and zero prescription policy for health care services.
• INR 3,200 crore has been proposed for roads and highways against INR 2,561.98 crore last year.
• For the Goregaon-Mulund Link Road, a budgetary provision of INR 1,870 has been proposed against last year’s INR 1,160 crore.
• No new taxes have been announced. The revenue from property tax was revised to INR 4,500 crore from last year’s INR 6,000 crore.
• The civic body has also proposed transportation and commercial on the checkpoints at Dahisar and Mankhurd. A sizeable grant of ₹928.65 crore is proposed for grant to BEST undertaking.
• The health budget is pegged at INR 1716.85 crore against INR 1384.04 crore last year.
• For education, INR 3497.82 crore has been proposed up from last year's ₹3,370 crore. 
• Meanwhile, INR 1,930 crore for the beautification work.
• A budgetary provision for Mumbai Coastal Road (Versova Interchange to Dahisar Interchange) and GMLR connector has been proposed at INR 2,960 crore against INR 2,774.20 crore last year.
• Other prominent projects include concretisation of roads. As per the budget document, about 209 km roads are proposed to be improved in cement concrete in the ensuing year 2024-25. Prominent roads like Veer Nariman Road, Kuprej Road in City, Dayaldas Road, Link Road, Goregaon Mulund Link Road, Road towards Goregaon in Western Suburb, Bajiprabhu Deshpande Marg, Chheda Nagar Road No.1, P. Somani Marg, Raheja Vihar Road in Eastern Suburbs are proposed for improvement in 2024-25.
• This year’s budget also shows an increasing trend of capital expenditure against revenue expenditure to emphasise infrastructure projects for better facilities and modernised services to the citizens.
• The expenditure on capital projects is expected to reach INR 25,315.81 crore from INR 13,957.65 crore.

Climate Budget:

A separate space of climate budget has been provided this year as the city is grappling with the worst air quality ever.

To overcome this issue, the BMC will start a 'Green Budget Book' which will be a dedicated climate budget for the city. This will have initiative for systematically reducing emissions and enhancing climate resilience.

The book will have initiatives like developing gardens, implementing MCAP strategies along with projects like Renewable Hybrid Energy and waste to energy plans.

Boost Use of EVs:

In a bid to promote electric public transportation, the BMC has allotted a total budget provision of ₹928.65 crore as a grant to the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST). Of the total, ₹800 crore is to meet the expenditure on infrastructural development and purchase of capital equipment, purchase of new buses on wet lease basis, day-to-day expenses and payment of Diwali bonuses.

For procurement and deployment of 2000 electric buses within Mumbai, the BMC will be funding ₹128.65 crore. The rest of the funding for the project, which has been pegged at ₹2,573 crore is expected from the World Bank in the form of a soft loan.

Education Budget:

This year, the budget plan includes a ₹4.5 crore provision to establish an innovative mathematics and science centre in primary sections of 25 schools on pilot basis. Along with this the BMC will provide modern school dictionary to around 1.7 lakh students from classes V to X, establish open gymnasiums in 200 schools, preserve documents in digitized formats, and procure medium-wide grammar books for students in classes IX and X.

Coastal Road Project

A budget provision of ₹2,900 crores has been proposed to meet the compensation of the Worli fishermen along with installation of CCTV, Video Managing System, Emergency Communication Systems. The BMC will also be making an underground parking area at the Coastal Road Project along with a green belt for recreational facilities.