BMC Budget Highlights: From Coastal Road to GMLR, here are key takeaways of major infrastructure projects

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The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Friday presented its budget for the fiscal 2024-25. The BMC presented a Rs 59,954.75 crore budget for the year 2024-25. This amount is 10.5 per cent more than last year's total budget allocation of Rs 54,256.07 crore.

The estimated revenue income for the financial year 2024-25 is proposed to Rs 35,749.03 crore which is Rs 2,459 crore more than budget estimates of 2023-24. A Surplus budget of Rs 58.22 crore is announced.

BMC Budget Highlights: Mumbai Coastal Road Project

For its ambitious Mumbai Coastal Road Project, the BMC in its budget has allocated a fund of Rs 2,900 crores. The revised expenditure for the fiscal year 2023-24, meanwhile, stands at Rs 3,000 crores.

While the south-works on the project is 83.34 per cent complete, the first phase is slated to become operational this year.

"Efforts are being made by BMC to open the part of Coastal Road from February 2024 and we are determined to complete the project work till May 2024. The Mumbai Coastal Road Project (South) work of Package I, II, IV is in progress, and till December 24, 2023, 83.34 per cent of work is completed. In Package IV, the excavation of tunnel work is completed. Interchange work of Package-I is 99 per cent completed and 69 per cent in Package-II is completed," the budget document said.

BMC Budget Highlights: Goregaon Mulund Link Road project gets Rs 1,870 crore

For the Goregaon Mulund Link Road (GMLR) project, the civic body has allocated a fund of Rs 1, 870 crore. Meanwhile, a total budget provision of Rs 1160.95 crores is proposed in the revised expenditure for the fiscal year 2023-24.

"The project is being implemented in four phases. In Phase-3, work of construction of a Twin Tunnel of 4.7 km length with an internal diameter. 13 meter under Sanjay Gandhi National Park by Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM), Box Tunnel of 1.6 km length in Film City area along with approach roads has been commenced. The work will use two new TBMs based on the latest technology and includes SCADA by setting up an updated control room for tunnel traffic, electronic equipment for air quality monitoring inside the tunnel, a State-of-the-Art emergency telephone system and modern fire prevention system with operation and maintenance period of 10 years," the civic body said.

The main objective of Phase-3 is to propose an alignment along the shortest route, to establish a high speed, high capacity East-West link, to plan an East-West road link without adversely affecting the environment and to propose a non-invasive solution enabling the preservation of the city's green forests i.e. SGNP, Aarey and its lakes. Also, it will save huge capital costs on part of land acquisition as this route will be constructed underground through National Park & Aarey. Also, Phase-4 is in the planning stage, it added.

BMC Budget Highlights: BMC proposes financial study for major upcoming infra projects

The BMC, in its budget, has proposed to carry out a financial study to make all the upcoming major infrastructure projects self-sustainable. This includes the entire package of the Mumbai Coastal Road Project (Marine Drive to Dahisar), and Goregaon to Mulund.

"In Mumbai, major infrastructure projects like Coastal Road (Princess Street to Bandra-Worli Sea Link, Varsova to Dahisar & Dahisar to Mira-Bhayandar), GMLR, STP, etc. are undertaken by BMC. These projects will bring numerous benefits to Mumbaikars like they will help to resolve the problem of traffic congestion, reduce air and noise pollution and also fuel consumption. These projects require huge amount of capital expenditure to get them completed within time and with quality. However, to maintain these projects on a continuous basis, considering enormous fund requirements, BMC intends to carry out the financial study by appointing a consultant to explore the possibility for self-sustainability of these projects," the civic body said.