Are you hoping that the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) will decongest junctions to ease your commute to work? Or are you waiting for the civic body to develop the lake that has become a cesspool of filth and sewage? In all likelihood, you may just have to wait endlessly.
The BBMP’s budget for 2012-13 will now only be presented after the Hindu Lunar month of “Ashada” considered “inauspicious”. The month begins on Wednesday, according to the Hindu calendar. Secondly, the BJP, which is the Ruling Party in the BBMP Council, is all set to present yet another “unrealistic budget” to woo voters ahead of the Assembly elections.
Though the BJP has been claiming that the budget will be realistic, the party leadership is in no mood to do so. Sources said that Mayor D. Venkatesh Murthy and chairperson of the Standing Committee for Taxation and Finance K.A. Muneendra Kumar had been directed to present an inflated budget even if most projects and programmes cannot be implemented, given the BBMP’s precarious financial position.
The sources said that the outlay of the draft budget that the officials prepared was around Rs. 8,000 crore. The draft budget has been submitted to the Standing Committee for Taxation and Finance. “Since the party leadership’s direction, the draft budget is unlikely to be considered by the committee. The party wants ‘people-friendly’ programmes and schemes to be included in the budget,” the sources added.
The month of “Ashada” has become a ruse for the BJP to present the budget late. The previous two budgets were also delayed and presented after “Ashada” came to an end. The Opposition parties have been demanding that the budget be presented in March-April, as specified in the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act 1976.
With the budgets being presented late, development works in the city have all but come to a standstill. The BBMP managed to implement just 40 per cent of the 2010-11 budget and 41 per cent of the 2011-12 budget.
