The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has increased its health budget by 11 per cent for the year 2021-22 compared to three per cent for 2020-21. The civic body has estimated Rs 4,728.53 crores for this year compared to Rs 4,260 crore which was proposed in the year 2020-21. Officials said they are mainly focusing on improving the health infrastructure, building new hospitals, moreover the capital expenditure has also increased with 50 per cent compared to last year.
The civic body has also planned to vaccinate 1 crore citizens of Mumbai once the vaccine is freely available in the market. Currently the distribution of vaccines is being regularised by the central government and it's free for the first and second phase. Moreover for maintaining the health data of each administration of ward, BMC has allocated rupees seven crore for the Outpatient Department (OPD) on wheel which is a mobile clinic and for the immunisation programme which the civic body has planned to achieve in the next 10 year.
Suresh Kakani, Additional Municipal Commissioner said their main focus is to strengthen health infrastructure for which Rs 822. 72 crore has been proposed compared to 483.07 crore which was allocated last year. “There is no steep rise in the budget allocation to the health department and our priority will be to focus on completing existing infrastructure projects that have been on hold for 7-8 months owing to the pandemic,” he said.
Two news hospitals, one in Chandivali Sangharsh Nagar and a super specialty hospital in Bhandup, are the upgrade infrastructure in Mumbai’s eastern suburbs. Moreover the civic body has decided to complete the long due renovation work will continue in MT Agrawal Hospital, Bandra Bhabha and Govandi Shatabdi Hospital. Project plans for the next two years have been chalked out for Bhagwati Hospital in Borivali, Siddharth Hospital in Goregaon and Govandi Shatabdi Hospital.
“Due to the pandemic, the work on these hospitals had to be slowed down. We are stressing faster completion of the target this year,” said Dr Pradeep Jadhav, in-charge of peripheral hospitals in BMC.
For Sion Hospital, Rs 700-crore proposal has been submitted to the BMC to revamp the entire hospital in a phase-wise manner. “This will be a long-term redevelopment project. We have proposed to revamp the hospital with one building at a time. Departments of one building will be shifted to another during the renovation so that routine work is not affected,” said Dr RN Bharmal, medical director of education and medical colleges in the BMC.