February 4, 2022 1:44:58 am
Iqbal Singh Chahal (File) SANJANA BHALERAO speaks to Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal on how BMC plans to support the major infrastructure push that the 2022-23 budget is looking forward to.
How is BMC planning to boost revenue income to support the major infrastructure planned in the city. Why are you dipping into your reserves for funds?
In the last budget, our reserves amounted to Rs 81,000 crore, today it has increased to Rs 87,500 crore. The revenue is directed to these reserves. So, in all these years, whatever we have put in the reserves, we are dipping into that. If we are dipping into reserves and taking an internal loan to fund the project, it is a technical adjustment.
In this budget as well, you have projected property tax to be collected at Rs 7,000 crore. However, you have not been able to meet the target in the last couple of years. How are you going to ensure that we collect Rs 7000 crore in 2022-23? Is property tax going to increase?
In the last financial year, we collected Rs 5,100 crore as property tax and till now, our collection stands at Rs 4,800 crore. There are steps that we have to take in the coming year to reach the projected target. The first is implementing the scheduled revision of the capital value of the property tax, which has not been done in the last two years.
The revision will increase the property tax. Second, we will collect double property tax from unauthorised/illegal buildings, starting this year. Though we are providing exemption to houses of 500 sq ft size, the exemption amount of Rs 462 crore is small. Because of these measures, we will come back to the original property tax collection levels.
Citing revenue losses in the last year’s budget, BMC had approached the state government to appoint it as the Single Planning Authority (SPA) for Mumbai. What is the status of that?
For improved and systematic planning of the city, we had approached the state government to appoint a SPA for Mumbai, which currently has several agencies like Slum Rehabilitation Authority, Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority, Mumbai Port Trust and Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority making their own development plans for the areas they govern. Some bodies are also functioning under the Union government.
The discussion on the appointment of SPA is in the last stage.
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