BENGALURU: The much-awaited Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) budget is likely to be presented this week either on March 27 or March 28. While the civic body’s 2024-25 budget outlay was Rs 12,371.63 crore (which was revised post the approval from the State Government to Rs 13,116 crore), the 2025-26 budget, according to BBMP sources, is likely to be over Rs 18,000 crore.
The civic body has scheduled the budget meeting with the legislators from Bengaluru on Monday, in which Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, who is also Bengaluru's Development Minister, is also expected to take part to discuss this year’s budget and the allocations to different heads like Brand Bengaluru with eight categories — Sugama Sanchara Bengaluru, Clean Bengaluru, Green Bengaluru, Healthy Bengaluru, Education Bengaluru, Tech Bengaluru, Vibrant Bengaluru and Water Security Bengaluru.
The upcoming budget will be the fifth budget that will be tabled in the absence of an elected BBMP council.
This year’s budget will lay stress on basic infrastructure, make major roads signal-free and focus on solid waste management, which has been a severe issue haunting the city.
The last budget reserved a seed money of Rs 200 crore to prepare DPR for various road projects, including Urban Tunnel Project — at two places of heavy traffic congestion in the city. While the total cost for the tunnel road is Rs 40,000 crore, the State Government has stood ‘guarantee’ to BBMP for an amount of Rs 19,000 crore only and the rest, according to informed sources, has to be arranged by the civic body by securing loans.
Sources further said that the outlay is expected to go up as the State Government announced that the yearly grant of Rs 3,000 crore will be enhanced to Rs 7,000 crore. Also, to implement major developmental works on priority and to utilise the grants, a new Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) will be set up and the budget is likely to list out the developmental works.
The increase in this year’s budget outlay can also be attributed to the increase in its revenue collection — property tax collection — where in this year the taxes are collected from chronic defaulters by auctioning their properties to recover the dues and the advertisement revenue.
Rs 3.49L CITIZENS OWE rs 390 CR TO BBMP’
Of the total 20.5 lakh properties falling under the BBMP limit, 3.49 lakh property owners have not paid their property taxes, out of which 1.73 lakh are chronic defaulters and 1.76 lahks are current year (2024-25) defaulters. In total, they owe Rs 390 crore to BBMP, said Special Commissioner (Revenue) Munish Moudgil.
“All notices, SMSes, IVRS Calls, personal calls, and attachment notices have failed to make these chronic defaulters to pay. Even the One Time Settlement (OTS) scheme was not availed by chronic defaulters. For many years, they have not paid property tax.
Letting such citizens off is totally unfair to honest taxpayers. Anyone speaking for these 10% chronic defaulters is standing against 90% honest taxpayers and against public interest,” Moudgil said and added that BBMP is clear and determined to collect the property tax as per law. He requested people to support BBMP morally in its drive against these persistent and chronic tax defaulters.