Citizen budget for a greener Nagpur

NAGPUR: The Rs3,336.84 crore budget of the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) for 2023-24, a historic one with the administration projecting highest ever revenue figures, focuses on making the city clean, green, urbanised and systematised.
The NMC administrator Radhakrishnan B also scripted history by inviting and accommodating most of the 97 suggestions received from the citizens related to roads, gardens, stormwater lines, sewage lines etc.

The budget proposals include first urban park having 40,000 trees in Gorewada, dotting road dividers with saplings, ayurvedic park in East Nagpur, nursery at Lodhi Garden in West Nagpur and introducing mechanised sweeping and cleaning of sewage lines with zero human intervention.
Announced in 2022-23, Radhakrishnan said this year funds have been allocated for developing the city’s first pet park. Similarly, the NMC has also earmarked Rs1 crore for developing animal shelters for stray dogs.
This year’s budget will also make NMC’s fire department more capable and first in the state to have tallest hydraulic ladder (72 metres), said Radhakrishnan, who earmarked Rs6 crore for this. Currently, the city has tallest building which is 70 metres, while an upcoming project will be the first tower in the city with 100 metre height.
For saplings on road dividers, Rs20.50 crore allocation has been made. More traffic islands and new gardens also find place in the budget proposals and for the purpose Rs10.12 crore has been earmarked.
With complete ban on immersion of idols in city’s water bodies, devotees had faced a lot of inconvenience mostly during Ganesh festival and Navaratra as they had to go to Koradi lake for immersion of idols. To overcome this, Radhakrishnan said he has proposed four artificial tanks, one each in four assembly constituencies, this year. An allocation of Rs4.75 crore has been made, he said promising that the new tanks would be readied before this year’s festivities.
Besides this, the NMC will add 144 air-conditioned electric buses in its Aapli Bus fleet. This will help reduce air pollution caused by city transport services. The NMC has already inducted 74 electric buses in its fleet.
The state government has also agreed to provide funds for procuring additional 250 electric buses, he said.
“As an administrator, I had focused on strengthening major roads in 2022-23. There was much uproar by the citizens against NMC for neglecting roads in residential colonies. So, in the next financial year, the NMC will focus on internal roads. For this purpose, Rs40 crore has been allocated for renovation of tar roads,” said Radhakrishnan.
Besides this, under phase 1, 2, and 3, the NMC had converted almost 118km of tar roads into cement ones. Now, the NMC intends to convert another 40km roads by implementing phase 4, 5 and 6. These roads will be converted in three years, said the civic chief. For this, Rs100 crore each would be the contribution of the NMC, Nagpur Improvement Trust and state government.
The budget also aims to cut down response time to choked sewage complaints with strengthening of the public health engineering department by procuring more mechanised vehicles including suction-cum-jetting machines.