The Hindu : BMP budget, `pro-poor': Mayor

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Mar 20, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka-Bangalore

BMP budget, `pro-poor': Mayor

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE March 19. The Mayor of Bangalore, C.M. Nagaraj, on Wednesday claimed that the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) budget for 2003-2004 was "pro-poor".

``Our top priority is to ensure that slums in the City are `upgraded'. Regardless of the fact that the slums do not belong to the BMP, we have decided to provide basic infrastructure including water supply, underground drainage, power, and roads to slums. Our aim is to improve the living condition of these poor people,'' he said.

Addressing presspersons after the budget presentation, he said the budget reflected the Chief Minister, S.M. Krishna's aspirations to upgrade civic services to international standards. "Several international personalities visit our city often. We want to create an image for the City,'' he said.

He said the next preference was for upgrading roads. "Although this is an ongoing exercise, we plan to prepare a `history' of each road in the City. A record of when a road was asphalted, the contractor's name, how soon it was damaged, when asphalting is due again, and other details will be maintained. We will make it mandatory for contractors to maintain the roads they construct, for a specified period,'' he said.

Pointing out that there were no new levies, he said the budget was formulated in such a way as to ensure that it would not burden the citizens.

He said priority was given to education. Apart from giving schoolbags to children in BMP schools, the civic body planned to set up school betterment committees and parent-teacher associations to monitor the functioning of schools. The Akshara Foundation had come forward to adopt BMP schools, and the BMP planned to hand over primary schools in the first phase, he added.

A sum of Rs. 50 crore has been set aside for the development and maintenance of the 100 wards, Rs. 60 lakh for the development of each of the 27 new wards, Rs. 50 lakh each for the partially developed wards, and Rs. 40 lakh each for the older wards, according to the Chairman of the Standing Committee on Taxation and Finance, G. Krishnappa.

The BMP expects a revenue of Rs. 230 crore from property tax, and Rs. 40 crore from solid waste management fee and infrastructure fee.

Nothing new: Opposition

The Opposition parties in the BMP (Bangalore Mahanagara Palike) Council — the BJP, the JD(S), and the JD(U) — have described the budget for 2003-2004 as "stale".

Addressing separate press conferences today, the leaders of the parties, B.S. Satyanarayana (BJP), Syed Jameel Ahmed (JD-S), and Padmanabha Reddy (JD-U), alleged that "undue preference" was given to wards represented by Congress corporators.

``There is nothing new in the budget. All ongoing programmes have been mentioned in the 40-point agenda. It can be described as old wine in old bottle. They didn't even have the knack of packaging it attractively,'' the leaders said.

Discussions on the budget are scheduled to begin on Friday.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Southern States

Stories in this Section

BMP budget, `pro-poor': Mayor

Court lets HIV-infected woman return to her matrimonial home

Meet on sexual harassment law on May 2