Up by 150% — cost of monsoon preparations

While Mumbai records an average of 2,200 mm rainfall in monsoon, the city had recorded around 3,000 mm of rain in 2021.

Between 12-15 per cent of BMC’s Rs 45,949.21 crore annual budget for 2022-23 has been allocated for projects related to monsoon preparations – up from 7-8 per cent four or five years ago, according to BMC estimates.

The civic body is likely to have used Rs 5,000-6000 crore for monsoon preparedness in 2022-23, in comparison to around Rs 2,000 crore spent in 2018-19. The size of the municipal budget in 2018 was Rs 27,258.07 crore.

The cost of small monsoon works alone, such as desilting nullahs and cleaning underground drains, widening drains, filling potholes, pre-monsoon road repair works and and installing dewatering pumps is estimated to be Rs 800 crore in 2022-23. This monsoon, BMC installed about 500 dewatering pumps.

P Velarasu, additional municipal commissioner, said, “There are two aspects of monsoon preparedness – preventing loss of life and mitigating loss of the image of the city and the government. The budgetary allocation of monsoon-related works has increased in four to five years and its share in BMC budget has also gone up.”

The capital budget of BMC’s storm water drains department has shot up by 87 per cent – from Rs 822 crore in 2018-19 to Rs 1,539 crore in 2022-23. The capital budget of the roads department has shot up by 91 per cent – from Rs 1,148 crore in 2018-19 to Rs 2,200 crore in 2022-23.

While waterlogging has not led to loss of life in the recent past, it slows down life, Velarasu said. “In a coastal city like Mumbai, over 200 mm of rainfall in a few hours will result in waterlogging. We pour in crores of rupees to mitigate this.”

Apart from the routine expenditure, BMC has recently spent on bigger projects like underground silos for Hindamata (Rs 110 crore) and underground water pumping mechanism at Gandhi market (Rs 30 crore). More projects are underway, such as the underground water tanks at Milan subway – estimated to cost Rs 77 crore.

Promising pothole-free roads, over the next two years, BMC has proposed to convert 400 km of roads to cement-concrete at a cost of Rs 4,900 crore. Work of cement concretisation of 236 km of roads has been undertaken for 2022-23 at a cost of Rs 2,200 crore. Work of cement concretisation of 989.84 km of roads has been completed. Moreover, this year, BMC has allotted Rs 1.5 crore for each of the 24 administrative wards to fill potholes during monsoon.

Despite its demands on the taxpayers’ money, taking up monsoon preparedness works is the need of the hour, said experts.

Pankaj Joshi, an urban planner, said, “These choices differ from one government to another. More than a decade ago, when Brimstowad was first proposed, an administrator asked his department what would be the consequence of not taking up Rs 5,000 crore worth of proposed works as part of the project.

When he was told the city would experience waterlogging on an average of six days a year, he decided to utilise that money for projects that were more urgent then.”

“We are a coastal city. In my opinion, we have to look at the larger picture of climate change, and where we may land in 10 years later, and make policy interventions for that today.”

Velarasu said, “At a policy level, more needs to be done for the first aspect of monsoon preparedness – saving lives. We have been pumping money to improve the city’s image but that is slowly changing. For example, potholes are a bigger problem than waterlogging, as it directly impacts the quality of life. We are also focusing on disaster management, landslide-prone areas and preventing tree and building collapses.”