JOIN USThe Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has presented a Rs 10,600 crore “welfare” budget with an eye on the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. But, how many of these proposals will see the light of the day is anybody’s guess, given the civic body’s consistent failure to meet revenue targets and excessive dependence on the state government for grants. The corporation hopes to fund its populist schemes by mobilising property tax, advertisement revenue and betterment charges, but facts speak otherwise. For instance, as against the property tax target of Rs 3,226 crore for 2018-19, the corporation was able to collect only about Rs 2,350 crore, inclusive of arrears. The revenue estimates pegged at Rs 3,590 crore in the previous fiscal has now been increased to an ambitious Rs 6,746 crore, a tall order given the civic body’s past record of poor tax collection. With the BBMP failing to raise its own resources, its dependence on state government funds is in the range of 49%, according to a study by Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship. That’s sad commentary on a city that produces some 65% of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP).
Though fundamentally weak, the budget can be said to be in the right direction with over 40% of the funds being allocated for infrastructure and development works, a lion’s share of which is to go towards roads, garbage disposal, solid waste management, storm water drains, footpath development and mass afforestation. Dubbed a ‘pink budget’, the BBMP has promised a Rs 1 lakh bond to the first girl child of a family delivered at municipal corporation-run maternity homes, while women entrepreneurs owning mobile canteens will be eligible for a 50% subsidy. In a welcome move, funds have also been earmarked for the transgender community.
The BBMP is also starved for resources in the absence of a scientific formula for devolution of funds between the state government and the civic body, including the sharing of the state’s share of GST revenues, motor vehicle tax and stamp and registration fees. But the corporation, too, suffers from an acute deficiency of trust due to the high levels of inefficiency and corruption, because of which the government prefers to execute major projects on its own. However, what really ails Bengaluru is the absence of an umbrella organisation to coordinate between various civic bodies like BBMP, Bengaluru Water Supply and Sewage Board (BWSSB), Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA) and Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL), which at present not only work in silos, but often at cross-purposes. Bengaluru is crumbling under its own weight and unless an integrated approach is adopted towards its development, the city has little hope.