BENGALURU, 29 FEB

Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) on Thursday presented its budget for the financial year 2024-2025 with an outlay of Rs 12,371.63 crore, of which Rs 1,580 crore was allotted to Brand Bengaluru.

To meet the outlay of Rs 12,371.63 crore, the revenue of BBMP (Rs 8,294.04 crore) and grants from Central and State governments (Rs 4,077.59 crore) will be used, said BBMP Finance Commissioner Shivanand Kalakeri in his budget speech. This year's budget is greater than last year by Rs 1,208 crore. The budget shows a surplus of Rs 2.17 crore.

Brand Bengaluru

A total of Rs 350 crore has been allotted for the proposed 250-metre sky deck in the City. 

A separate ESCROW account dedicated to Brand Bengaluru projects will be started. A portion of BBMP’s revenue will be redirected to this account to avoid delays.  BBMP earmarked Rs 900 crore for white-topping roads totalling 145km across the City. As an initial allotment, Rs 300 crore was released. To reduce the traffic, the Urban Tunnel project will be undertaken in two highly congested areas of the City for Rs 200 crore.

Rs 130 crore was allotted for widening Kanakapura-Bannerghatta road, Hennur-Bagaluru road and Padarayanapura road in Chamarajpete and Rs 1,000 crore was allotted for waste management in the City. Under Healthy Bengaluru initiative of Brand Bengaluru, Rs 200 crore has been granted for improving healthcare and the corporation will launch ‘Aarogya Sarathi’ initiative to provide vaccines at doorsteps.

A sum of Rs 70 crore was allotted for starting 50 new Indira Canteens, including one at Kempegowda International Airport. The payment will for 16,000 pourakarmikas of BBMP will be direct, avoiding intermediaries.

BBMP is introducing Aadhaar seeding in property records. If citizens are giving Aadhaar details, then their properties will have added security.

Also, the interests of the pending tax will be waived completely as a one-time measure for the arrears till 31 July 2024. As many as 15 lakh taxpayers will benefit from this move. The new tax system rolling out on 1 April, 2024, will have only six slabs instead of the present 17 slabs. 

To improve its property tax collection, BBMP said it has scanned all the 20 lakh properties in the City and will issue e-Khata (legal document) to the property owners. ''The 'Namma Swathu' system through 'e-Aasthi' rollout will be implemented in all the wards under BBMP, enabling the public to access property records online anytime and anywhere,'' the civic agency said.

Blockchain technology will be implemented for property records to prevent unauthorised manipulation of property records. BBMP said it will roll out the 'Guidance Value based property tax system' from 1 April, 2024. 

A new advertisement policy and infotech-based transparent online system for the creation and issuance of Transferable Development Rights have also been promised.