BMC Unveils Rs 46,000-Crore Budget For FY23, Capex Spend At Record 49%

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation plans the highest capital expenditure in at least six years, led by infrastructure schemes including the coastal road project, in its budget outlay of Rs 45,949.2 crore for 2022-23.

While that's a jump of 17.7% over FY22, more than half of that will be spent on roads to bridges, according to the budget presented by Municipal Commissioner IS Chahal on Thursday. Tax rates remained unchanged and there were no new levies.

From this year, the corporation will focus on ‘Ease of Living' for its citizens and ‘Quality of Living', Chahal said. “BMC has started the process of empanelment of urban space designers who would study and rework on the roads, footpaths and community spaces to increase the ‘Ease of Walking.”

BMC's Income

India's richest civic body expects to raise 10.5% higher from revenue income, estimating a 10.5% jump over FY22, according to the budget document. Taxes will account for nearly half of this income at Rs 14,780 crore.

Property tax remains one of the biggest revenue generators at an estimated Rs 7,000 crore for FY23, despite 100% waiver to owners of homes of up to 500 square feet.

“About 16,14,000 citizens get 100% relief from property tax payment,” Chahal said, with the total exemption at Rs 462 crore a year.

The civic authority had estimated property tax income at Rs 7,000 crore for the ongoing FY22 but revised its down to Rs 4,800 crore. The fall in property tax is “temporary” and the civic body expects it to “come to normalcy in near future".

The civic authority biggest revenue source is compensation in lieu of octroi that it gets foregoing taxing rights after the implementation of the goods and services tax. Other key sources are income from Development Plan Department or through fees and premiums charged to developers; interest on investments and water and sewage charges.

Costal Road Gets Biggest Share In Capex

BMC has budgeted a capital expenditure at Rs 22,646.7 crore, or 49% of the total budgeted expenditure, for FY23.

It's proposed to allocate Rs 3,200 crore for the first phase of the coastal road project that will link Marine Drive to Bandra-Worli Sealink, including an undersea tunnel.

“The base construction cost of the coastal road project is Rs 8,429.44 crore and the total cost inclusive of taxes, supervision charges, charges and others is Rs 12,950 crore,” Chahal said. “All works of the package I, II, IV have commenced and till date 50% progress is achieved.”

Other major capex outlays were for the Goregaon-Mulund Link road, Ashray Yojna, and Mumbai sewage disposal project.

Key Highlights

• The roads and bridges departments allocated Rs 2,200 crore to build and improve cement concrete roads.

• Budget outlay for education is proposed at Rs 3,370.2 crore.

• For the work in railway portion, fund of Rs 102 crore has been allocated to the railways.

• The revision of capital value, used to charge property tax, has been deferred considering the Covid-19 situation with 2019-20 remaining the base year.