Mumbai: The BJP-led Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) has passed a Rs 1,369 crore budget, tagged with a meagre surplus, on the virtue of its majority in the special general body house. Standing committee chairman, Dhruv Kishore Patil, presented the budget to mayor Dimple Mehta on Wednesday.
Even as the civic administration struggles to boost revenue, the standing committee inflated the civic chief’s draft budget by a whopping Rs 156 crore, inviting sharp criticism from the opposition. Mr Patil said, “Assessment of new properties, regularisation of illegal structures by levying penalty, are some of the sources through which we expect to augment existing revenue generation.” The BJP has invited a huge outcry for its failure to accommodate important projects such as the waste management project in Sakwar, Vasai; inclusion of leftover areas in the underground sewage system; and most importantly, trimming of earmarked funds for public transport from Rs 12 to Rs 8 crore. Congress corporator Anil Sawant said, “Thanks to the politically motivated inflation by the ruling government, the civic administration stares at a revenue shortfall of more than Rs 400 crore.”
From Rs 675 crore in 2012 to Rs 1,551 crore last year, the MBMC has been unsuccessful every time in achieving the same mark in budgetary estimates and actual results the next year.
Even as the actual revenue generation stands at around Rs 400 crore, funds procured as grants and loans availed from various government agencies occupy a lion’s share in the budget.
