CHENNAI: “If we contain our expenditure within our capacity, then even lesser income will cause no harm. ” This is the rough translation of Thirukkural couplet with which Chennai Mayor R Priya began her budget speech on Friday.
Her maiden budget will be remembered as straight and simple exercise focused largely on basic infrastructural development and maintenance of existing amenities, as it shunned any grand and fancy announcements.
Fundamental areas like health, education, storm water drains and solid waste management receive priority treatment, and education side saw announcements like spoken English classes in schools, internet access, maintenance funds for broken amenities and teacher training programmes.
Compared to the capital expenses in the previous budget, this time the corporation has spent less. For bridges, it spent ₹260 crore last year, however, it would be spending ₹221 crore this year. From ₹150 crore for electrical department last year, the mayor reduced the sum to ₹70 crore now. Except the storm water drain packages, which got ₹1,235 crore allocation, other Smart City projects saw almost nil allocation.
The budget made conscious attempt to reduce its outstanding debt, which is more than ₹3,500 crore as of now, but tried to unveil big ticket projects for the city. While residents applauded the budget, they flagged certain issues that could have been part of the budget as newer projects.
“This year’s corporation budget looks very good for Chennai schools. However, budget allocation for parks and playfields is very less compared though they play a major role in shaping public health. The city needs many more such facilities, as a lot of OSR lands are available across the city,” said Sathish Galley of OMR.
Sridhar Venkatraman of Mylapore said funding of all projects detailed in the budget was welcome but where wa the transparency in terms of accounting. “That has been the sore point of all the investments. Also lamentable is the fact that there is no public discussion before building anything (Mada Street Redesign, Luz Avenue footpath change etc. ) and there is no going back to see if the stuff that they built is used for the purpose that it was designed,” he said.
Shantha Sheela Nair, former secretary to Government of India stated, while the priorities are right, with more emphasis on health and education, which are usually not taken seriously, the corporation should also focus more on solution-based infrastructure. “All these spending on health and education will benefit the economically weaker sections,” she said.
In terms of SWD expenditure, with the city being flat, the focus must be on localised systems and micro-basins where water drainage and disposal is looked at from a local point of view. “The city should be environmentally sustainable and more projects could have been announced on the environment side,” she added.
Economist Venkatesh Athreya said the civic body’s deficit is very high but since they have focused on all the core amenities despite the deficit efficiently, it is a good move. “But how they will handle the finances must be seen. They should get more grants from the union government to cut deficit and outstanding debts,” he added.
