Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) budget of Rs 30,696 crore for the financial year 2019-20 was passed by the civic house Saturday. However, ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the budget was cleared without any discussions by the corporators. It is likely that the code of conduct will come into force next week and to avoid delay in sanction of funds for various projects in the city, it was decided that only group leaders would speak on the budget before it was passed.
This is probably the first time the budget has been passed without any discussion by the corporators. The BMC house has a total 227 elected corporators and five nominated corporators. Usually every year, the budget is passed mid-March and many corporators put forth their objections, suggestions, demands on funds’ allocation etc.
However, if the dates of the LS polls were announced amidst the discussion, the sanction would be delayed up until the time results are out.
The corporators will send their fund demands in writing to the group leaders so that allocation can be made accordingly in their constituency. Out of the total 227 elected corporators, Shiv Sena has 95 corporators - the highest, followed by BJP, Congress, Samajwadi Party and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in that order.
Last week, the budget was passed in the standing committee headed the Sena’s Yashwant Jadhav with amendments of Rs 450 crore. This amount has been allocated to 227 corporators for development of their wards. This includes Rs 1 crore per corporator as development fund and Rs 60 lakh corporator fund.
Municipal commissioner of Mumbai, Ajoy Mehta, during the sanction of the budget, said, “In order to create five million jobs, there will be a rise in commercial places while weekly meetings will be conducted at ward level on funds utilisation.”
