In the poll-bound year the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has not increased tax but decided to use its reserves to finance key infrastructure projects, rationalise staff and improve efficiency. In an exclusive interview with DNA, BMC Commissioner Ajoy Mehta explains strategy. Higher establishment expenses in annual budget is a cause of concern. How BMC is addressing this issue? A: BMC has already launched a massive exercise of rationalisation in human resource deployment. It employs 1 lakh people and is one of the largest employer in the the city. So the focus is on rationalising HR, making deployment more efficient so that BMC is able to deliver for every rupee spent. BMC is looking at redeployment and retraining but no retrenchment. It has come up with a list of job roles that are not needed, jobs that can be rolled into one and those which can be redeployed. Collection of property tax and revenue from development plan is expected to decline in 2019-20. How do you plan to deal with that? Collection of revenue from property tax has gone down. Last year, we have seen a negative growth. With new development control regulations (DCR) smoothening the process, we hope for a significant pickup in real estate. BMC hopes for a major upswing in property tax and Development Plan (DP) charges. BMC may lose Rs 1,000 crore this year but see major growth due to new DCR. It must be mentioned here that the allocation of Rs 3,300 crore has been made to implement DP. BMC has even withdrawn money from its reserve to finance various projects. Is it an act of breaching the fiscal prudence? BMC is sitting on a pile of Rs 75,537 crore, of which Rs 22,902 crore have been kept aside. So the remaining amount is Rs 52,635 crore. The civic body, however, can borrow more money, increase taxes and use its other resources to achieve target. Its deposits, with the naya paisa, is also linked to infrastructure project. Therefore, it cannot be diverted to any non-productive use. So, the BMC — in the budget document — has transparently listed the projects and mentioned the amount of fixed deposits that will go into that. Some of these projects included coastal highway, sewage treatment plants (STPs), Goregaon Mulund Linking Road, waste-to-energy plant at Deonar, biomining and closure of dumping ground at Mulund and construction and demolition waste management plant. Also, the money from fix deposit is linked to these projects. The sum cannot be used for any non-productive use. BMC has made allocation of a paltry Rs 44 crore to BEST. Will the wait for merger of BEST with BMC will be longer? BEST is a critical element in the city's transport system. It needs subsidy to thrive. However, BMC will subsidise the passengers and not inefficiency. So improvement in efficiency is re-emphasised in the budget. However, while improving efficiency, BEST does not retrench anybody. If there is no retrenchment, and if certain policies can be put in place to improve efficiency where is the problem? So if a bus can ply at Rs 50/km why should you run the bus at Rs 100/km? This way, we can bring down the price of tickets and offer better services. Merger is not the solution. BMC is also running on taxpayers money, it cannot be spent on inefficient system. Public money has to be used wisely, prudently and efficiently.

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