With an eye on the upcoming General Elections, the BJP-ruled North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) will be spending over 420 crore on development works specially in rural areas and unauthorised colonies. Of this, a whopping 120 crore will be used for developing civic amenities in unauthorised colonies. The amount was a meagre 2 crore during the last financial year.
Finalising the Budget for the year 2014-15 in the Standing Committee, the Corporation approved the funds to be spent over improvement of roads, sanitation services, maintenance work, street lightings and civic amenities in unauthorised colonies. This development fund allocated this year is nearly 234 crore more than the previous year.
The allocation of fund for unauthorised colonies has got political significance. The residents of these localities form a major vote bank of Congress and Aam Aadmi Party and the BJP aims at making a dent into the vote share of these parties. Apart from development in unauthorised colonies, the civic body has also focused on improvement of roads and streets. The Corporation has allocated 78 crore for this purpose. For improvement of roads, the Corporation has also exceeded the limit from 50 lakh per ward to 75 lakh in each of the wards.
Similarly, 41.6 crore has been earmarked for sanitation services while 46.8 crore will be spent on maintenance of existing infrastructure. The civic body also plans to spend 15.6 crore for repair and maintenance of the street lights. The civic body has fixed 30 crore for carrying out works in rural wards while 52 crore has been reserved as ward development fund with public participation. The NMC targets to spend 31.50 crore for approved colonies.
In a bid to woo the significant Poorvanchali population in the city, the civic body has earmarked 5 crore for arrangements during chhath pooja. Further, the corporation has increased the amount of old age pension from existing 1,000 per month to 1,200 per month.
Meanwhile, for development works in regularised unauthorised colonies, 50 crore has been earmarked while 8 crore for villages in urban areas and 15 crore for roads in urban areas has been allocated. 20 crore will be spent for developing roads in rural areas. The corporation will also spend 50 crore for solid waste management. For the renovation of roads in villages, a budget of 5 crore has been approved.