With the Lok Sabha and assembly elections barely months away, the ruling BJP in Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has thrown financial caution to the wind and escalated the civic budget for 2019-20 by Rs 680 crore. Advertising The budget, presented at the General Body meeting of the PMC on Friday, includes several voter-friendly initiatives such as insurance cover, road infrastructure projects, cancer detection test facility for all women in civic hospitals, allowing school and college students to use civic gardens to study, lecture series to guide students of Class X, yoga centres in civic schools and gardens and mobile clinics for senior citizens. Last month, the civic administration had struck a cautionary note with its draft budget for the financial year 2019-20, which, at Rs 6,085 crore, was only Rs 215 crore more than the budget for the current fiscal. The civic body’s cautious stance was a result of its inability to meet the financial targets it had set in its budget for this financial year. The administration also didn’t include any new major infrastructure projects in its draft budget. Overruling the administration’s concerns, BJP corporators have increased the budget estimates and declared various sops and new infrastructure projects. “The new schemes and projects have been proposed considering the need of citizens and demands made by elected representatives to resolve the civic issues in their respective areas,” said Yogesh Mulick, chairperson of the standing committee. Mulick said the civic administration had been asked to undertake cost-cutting measures and increase revenue collection to raise funds for the ambitious plans. “If required, the PMC will raise funds through loans for infrastructure projects,” he said. The budget also has allocations for development of various civic projects in Vadgaonsheri, the constituency of the standing committee chief’s brother Jagdish Mulick. “The traffic situation in Nagar Road needs to be improved… projects worth Rs 100 crore have been proposed for the area. Similar projects have been proposed in other parts of the city as well,” said Yogesh Mulick. A budgetary provision of Rs 185 crore has also been made to improve water supply to residents of Nagar Road by completing a project to draw water from Bhama Askhed dam. Advertising In 2014, the BJP had won the sole Lok Sabha seat and all eight assembly segments in Pune. Now, it faces the challenge of retaining its supremacy in city politics.

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