Bengaluru: The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) unprecedently uploaded the 2022-23 budget on its website late Thursday night. The budget which is ideal to be shared weeks ahead of the end of the next financial year was shared with the public through a social media announcement around 11.30 pm on Thursday night.
The month-long Karnataka budget session had delayed the Bengaluru City budget presentation by 20 days. There was also a delay because of resistance to the Chief Minister from a few ministers residing in the city on the tax collection model of the BBMP, an official said. The 2022-23 budget has an outlay of Rs 10,500 crores compared to Rs 9,952 crores in 2021- 22. A target of Rs 1500 crore has been set for property tax collection. The miscellaneous amount of revenue generation target has been set for around Rs 6000 crore.
The target of social welfare schemes expenditure has also been set this time to be 36% of the total budget outlay, the official said. Tax collection and amount utilization have been divided ward-wise to develop wards. The budget is divided based on the utilization of money for inner wards and wards in outer parts of Bengaluru as informed by BBMP Officials.
Corporation officials said that stress is being laid on property tax collection. For the first time, the BBMP has also decided to scale up the property tax collection by identifying large houses with the BESCOM bills. Also, penalties are being imposed for those underpaying their property tax and showing improper utilization of properties.
BBMP Administrator Rakesh Singh said that the budget was released late "as it was finalized at the end of the day after a lot of detailed discussions and works". Since it was the end of the financial year, the exercise could not have been delayed any further, he said. In the wake of the pandemic, the state government and the BBMP have increased the amount to be spent for improving the public health medical category, when compared to last year, Singh said.
Budget experts and citizens criticized the BBMP for the late-night uploading of the budget and said that this was an act "meant to avoid public scrutiny and queries but not surely transparent".
