Patna Municipal Corporation approves Rs 1,500 crore budget

PATNA: Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Wednesday, February 17, authorised a budget incorporating a disbursement of approximately Rs 1,500 crore in fiscal 2021-22, including Rs 780 crore on infrastructure development alone.

The budget was presentedin a special meeting of the PMC’s board comprising of all 75 ward-councilors including Sita Sahu, Mayor of PMC, and senior officials of the civic body, including Himanshu Sharma, Commissioner, PMC.

While the aggregate estimated expense in the ongoing fiscal has been valued at Rs 1499.85 crore, the revenue of the civic body from different sources has been estimated at Rs 1359.23 crore. According to the budget document, the PMC has expended Rs 256.80 crore on solid waste management works, including garbage removal and drainage cleaning.

The salient feature of this year’s PMC budget is air pollution control disbursements, under which the civic body has targeted to expend Rs 204 crore. Financial resources to the tune of Rs 102 crore are intended to be spent on composting and recycling plants, waste to energy, road pavement, footpath, green buffering and other expenses for reducing air pollution. Another Rs 14.4 crore will be spent on operations and maintenance of sweeping machines.

Addressing the occasion, Sahu said that the budget is dedicated to sanitation workers, who worked in a dedicated manner at a time of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. She added that the sanitation workers ensured that our city remained clean for a better fight against the pandemic.