Focused on decongesting city roads and building infrastructure for public mobility, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) on Thursday presented a surplus budget with an outlay of Rs 11,163 crore for 2023-24. This was the third consecutive budget of Bengaluru’s civic body without an elected council.
Claiming that the budget to be well within prescribed fiscal discipline parameters, BBMP’s special commissioner (finance) Jayaram Raipura said, “The total receipts of the BBMP during 2023-24 will be Rs 7,070 crore along with additional Centre-state grants of Rs 4,094 crore. While the total receipts would be Rs 11,164 crore, the total expenditure is estimated to be Rs 11,158 crore.”
BBMP revenue officials maintained that the budget is surplus by Rs 6 crore and thereby achieving the principles of the Fiscal Responsibility Act. Stating that the collection of property tax is one of the major sources of revenue, Raipura said, “The total property tax collected by the BBMP along with cess has increased significantly. While it was Rs 3,033 crore in 2021-11, the same has gone up to Rs 3,758 crore during 2022-23 with an increase of 24% year-on-year basis.”
He said the target for this fiscal has been set at Rs 4,412 crore. This apart, BBMP also proposed to mobilise about Rs 800 crore by converting ‘B Khata‘ properties into ‘A Khata’ properties and another additional Rs 658 crore by way of a town-planning approval fee.
Steering itself away from announcing multiple populist projects, BBMP chose to address the perennial problem of traffic congestion on Bengaluru roads by building flyovers, and underpasses and taking up road widening works at a cost of Rs 3,994 crore, including borrowing of Rs 770 crore from KUIDFC.