Bengaluru: BBMP budget uploaded on website without official announcement

BENGALURU: In a shocking development on late Thursday night at around 11 pm the budget of the city corporation and mangement was uploaded in the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (bbmp) website. It was shared with the public through a social media announcement at 11.24 pm.

The budget outlay for the year 2022- 23 has been set at Rs 10,48,428.08 lakhs, compared to Rs 88048.13 lakhs in 2021- 22. The opening balance shown by the BBMP finance section is Rs 558 lakh compared to Rs 352  lakh in 2021- 22. The payments have been shown to be Rs 10,48,093.45 lakhs.

A senior BBMP official seeking anonymity told The New Indian Express that the month long budget session which was being held by the state government had delayed the Bengaluru City budget presentation by 20 days. Further there was also a delay because of resistance from a few ministers residing in the City on the tax collection model.

According to the officials, the tax collection and amount utilization has been divided ward wise for ward development.

The budget divided utilization of money of Rs for corre for inner wards and Rs six cfore for wards in outer parts of Bengaluru.

Also the spending has been defined based on categories like Rs 50 lakh for potholes, 50 per cent for major roads, and special percentages for soldi waste management, storm water drains and footpaths.

IN the budget, the official said that stress is being laid on property tax collection and a target of Rs 1500 crore as a minimum has been set. “For the first time the BBMP has also decided to club the property tax collection and identification of large houses with the Bescom bills as all homes use electricity.

Also penalties are being imposed for those under playing their property tax and showing improper utilization of properties (like stating it is residential but utilizing it for commercial purposes). Miscellaneous amounts revenue generation target has been set of around Rs 6000 crore.

The target of social welfare schemes expenditure has also been set this time to be 36 per cent from the total budget outlay,” the official said.

BBMP Administrator Rakesh Singh told TNIE that the budget was released late as it was finalized at the end of the day after a lot of detailed discussion and work. Since it was the end of the financial year, the exercise could have been delayed any further.

In wake of the pandemic, the state government and the BBMP has increased the amount to be spent for improving the public health medical category, when compared to last year.

For the delayed uploading of the budget, while the BBMP officials defended themselves and stated that they were showing a professional attitude, experts and citizens criticised them and said that this was an act to not to come to public eye and answer questions and not to be transparent. 

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