Mumbai: The unexpected 32-per cent reduction in the BMC’s budget is a reflection of the ruling dispensation’s need to return to reality after a heady election campaign studded with big promises, feel political analysts.
Ravi Duggal, Country Co-ordinator, International Budget Partnership said the inflationary budget for the previous fiscal year probably had to do with the impending civic elections, and big projects had to be put on public display. “Now, the elections are over and a deflated realistic budget has been presented,” he said.
Mr. Duggal infers that the drastic cut of ₹11, 911 crore in the budget is a major reduction in establishment costs, and could result in less recruitments. “It probably also had to do with the anticipated loss in revenue in terms of GST or octroi, which seems to have been factored in in this budget. This means no capital expenditure in health or no major capital spending in other sectors. There is a 30% cut in capital expenditure on projects that were announced but don’t seem to have taken off. While there is no major cut in health spending and a slight dip in educational spending, water supply and sanitation seem to be in for substantial cuts.”
Milind Mhaske, Project Director at Praja Foundation which works to enable accountable governance, said the BMC’s ‘misplaced priorities’ are disturbing.
“Shouldn’t their priority be to strengthen the BEST, rather than cater to private transport by spending ₹1,000 crore on a single Coastal Road. This will see only 1.2 lakh car trips a day, which is nowhere near the number of trips made by BEST buses? If you have money, why not spend it on things accessible to many?”
Report on targets met
He suggested the BMC could do much more in providing better access to stations like Dadar and Kurla on a smaller budget. “But they don’t seem to be interested in projects that don’t cost a lot.” Mr. Mhaske also wants the civic body to bring out reports at the end of financial year on targets met, but this shouldn’t simply be accounts of money spent “because money spent does not necessarily mean targets were met”.
“Prior to 2005, the BMC would come out with a financial overview that gave a sense of what they did. They do come out with an annual analysis report, but that is quite unreadable. Shouldn’t the city’s largest service providing organisation have a better benchmarking process in place in terms of a performance budget or outcome budget?” Expressing satisfaction over the budget getting realistic and cutting out the big-ticket projects “that just got announced without any intent to execute them”, Mr. Mhaske was all praise for the first-ever allocation of over ₹2,000 crore for implementing the DP rules.
Pankaj joshi, urban planner and Executive Director, Urban Design Research Institute, said the budget had incorporated the needs of the city’s Development Plan for the first time since 1967. “Till this year, they [BMC] wouldn’t say how much was kept for the DP Rules. At the end of this financial year, the BMC should report on progress in the DP’s execution.”
Mr. Joshi feels the 2017-18 BMC budget is a “regular, status quo-maintaining budget” with no futuristic vision. “Ideally, I would have liked the municipal budget it to be far more forward-looking by going in for digital inclusion. In cities like New York, the municipal corporation provides fibre connectivity to make the city digitally inclusive, and also earns from it. Ideally, the civic body should also look at issues like cleaner air, climate change, rising sea levels and even factor in how to tackle lifestyle diseases. There is no talk of new hospitals in the suburbs, despite a major population shift from city to suburbs.”
Spending cuts in primary education are expected to adversely impact its delivery. “I am disappointed with the cut in allocation for primary education at a time when Right to Education norms need to be implemented. The poorest of the poor go to civic schools and they need good school teachers. We need real teachers who can deliver real education in real classrooms and not investments in virtual concepts thrown around to diverge from the real picture. Putting money in virtual classrooms or e-teaching devices doesn’t take away the importance of teachers in the system. It’s unfortunate that the education budget has been reduced by almost ₹200 crore this year,” says Ramesh Joshi, a former member of the Planning Commission of India’s consultative group on education.
