The New Indian Express 27.07.2013
Mayor’s Rs 8,519-crore ‘unrealistic’ budget draws flak

Yet another delayed and unrealistic budget with an outlay of Rs
8,519.66 crore was presented by the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike
(BBMP) for 2013-14 on Friday.
This despite the Urban Development Department’s direction to Mayor D Venkatesh Murthy to present a realistic one.
As
per the budget, the total receipts for 2013-14 is expected to be Rs
8,520.56 crore which includes Rs 3,307.50 crore in tax revenue, Rs
2,290.04 crore in non-tax revenue, Rs 1,732.88 crore from government
grants and Rs 1,114.84 crore from miscellaneous receipts. The total
expenditure is pegged at Rs 8,519.66 crore, including Rs 2,757.48 crore
in revenue expenditure and Rs 5,762.18 crore in capital expenditure. An
overall surplus of Rs 90 lakh is expected.
This year, BBMP expects
Rs 3,200 crore from property tax. But this seems far from reality. Last
year, the BBMP had anticipated Rs 2,000 crore from property tax but
ended up collecting only Rs 1,360 crore, including arrears. This year,
the BBMP expects to generate Rs 550 crore from the optical fibre cable
policy even though it still hasn’t been approved by the State
government.
Through advertisement tax, the BBMP is expecting Rs
107.5 crore even as their own officials claim the receipts will be only
half the expectation. Last year, the BBMP had expected to collect Rs 90
crore from trade licences but ended up with only Rs 13.55 crore. This
year, they are expecting Rs 25 crore.
The BBMP is also banking
hugely on State and Central government grants. A sum of Rs 492.33 crore
has been earmarked under the State Finance Commission and Rs 296.56
crore from the 13th Finance Commission, of which Rs 50 crore is for
solid waste management and Rs 50 crore for multi-level car parking.
The
State government had announced Rs 900 crore under the Nagarottana
Yojane and the same was announced by the Mayor in his budget. Under
JnNURM grants, the State and Central governments will provide Rs 137
crore. A detailed proposal of Rs 2,128.03 crore has been submitted to
the Central government for various JnNURM projects.
What’s New
- 5 crore to set up 18-ft bronze statue of Nadaprabhu Kempegowda at BIA
Property tax to be collected through 400 bank branches and BangaloreOne
centres
- 5 crore for meritorious students from backward classes who are willing to go abroad for higher education
- 3 crore to renovate Town Hall
- 1 crore to distribute books on biographies of imporant personalities
- 50 crore to construct footpaths
- 10 crore to upgrade public toilets Proposal to pay honorarium to outsourced teachers directly from BBMP
- 73.07 crore to maintain parks
- 300 crore towards asphalting of select roads Old Wine in a New Bottle
- Dr B R Ambedkar Housing Scheme has been changed to Jai Bheema Housing
scheme, where it is proposed to construct houses for poor SC/ST people
- Last year, 3.75 lakh saplings were proposed to be planted in the name of ‘Saalumarada Thimmakka’. This year, Rs 31 crore has been proposed to plant saplings in the name of N Lakshman Rau, former administrator of Bangalore City Municipal Corporation
- Rs 6 crore allotted to set up blood pressure and sugar testing units in
each ward under the name of Jagadish Chandra Bose. This year, the name
has been changed to ‘Arogyave Bhagya’
- Last year, Rs 1 crore was
announced to install Kittur Rani Chennamma statue’s at the stadium in
Jayanagar. The same was announced this year too
- Grade
separators at five junctions, including Maramma Circle in Malleswaram,
Magadi Road, Basaveshwara Nagar Road junction and Rajajinagar 10th
Cross-West of Chord junction, which were announced last year, was
announced again on Friday
- Signal-free corridors at Dr Rajkumar
Road, Outer Ring Road, Hosur Road, Old Airport Road and Mekhri Circle
were announced this year too
- Roads to be developed under TenderSure were announced again. The sum has been doubled to Rs 200 crore