GHMC council okays Rs.6,841 crore budget

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) appears to be determined to steam ahead with its developmental plans, and has, in fact, gone ahead to increase its exclusive budget this year by Rs 220 crore compared to last year.

In what was the first-of-its-kind virtual council meeting held here on Tuesday, the GHMC approved an exclusive budget of Rs 5,600 crore for 2021-2022 against Rs 5,380 crore in 2020-21. Besides, Rs 1,241.87 crore has exclusively been allocated for the 2BHK scheme, taking the total budget to Rs 6,841 crore.

The budget, placed before the council by Mayor G Vijay Laxmi, also includes Rs 936 crore for the Pattana Pragathi programme.

A lion’s share of the budget this year has been marked for road development and maintenance, road-cutting restoration, road widening, footpath and table drain works. All



these works have been categorised as ‘Other Infrastructure Works’, with a mammoth Rs 2,131.68 crore being approved for the same.

This financial year, the GHMC expects to generate revenue of Rs 2,413.60 crore through property tax and building permit fees. Out of the Rs 5,600-crore budget, capital expenditure is Rs 3,186 crore. Capital expenditure takes care of road restoration, infrastructure development, drains, construction of pavements, parks, illumination and other developmental works.

As per GHMC records, the spending will be more as the entire 709-km main road network in the city is being restored under the Comprehensive Road Maintenance Programme (CRMP) and the money is being credited to the agencies in a phased manner. Apart from that, more money will be pumped to execute Pattana Pragathi this year.