Bengaluru civic body allocates Rs 11,157.83 cr budget for 2023-24

Karnataka's capital city Bengaluru received a major push for infrastructure development works in the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike's (BBMP) budget for the fiscal year 2023-2024. The budget with a total outlay of Rs 11,157.83 crore, was presented by Jayaram Raipura, BBMP's special commissioner for Finance. 63 per cent of the budget has been allocated to various public infrastructure projects accounting for the bulk of the money, followed by a 14.73 per cent allocation to solid waste management. With a primary objective in decongesting city traffic, the budget allocations are centred around development of road infrastructure — constructing elevated flyovers, comprehensive development of arterial and sub-arterial roads, improvement of junctions, building signal-free corridors. There is a need to decongest Bengaluru traffic, improve traffic flow at junctions and create signal free traffic corridors. In this regard, the following flyovers and underpasses are proposed to be taken up during 2023-24 itself, BBMP's budget document reads. While the effectiveness of flyovers in reducing traffic congestion remains a much-debated topic in the city, the civic body has put forth proposals to construct flyovers and underpasses, which were initially announced by the Chief Minister, Basavaraj Bommai. The BBMP has allotted Rs 1,650 crore for building 16 flyovers, including seven new ones, in different parts of Bengaluru. For the same, the civic body will borrow Rs 770 crore from the Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development and Finance Corporation (KUIDFC) to fund most of the flyovers. The government will provide most of the remaining money. There are currently 42 flyovers and 28 under bridges in Bengaluru city. Four more flyovers and four under bridges will be added this year. An amount of Rs 20 crore has been earmarked for the maintenance of these flyovers, under bridges and pedestrian subways. The civic body also proposed other measures like redeveloping of roads and junctions. To address slow-moving traffic, 75 major junctions will be taken up for development. Additionally, roads witnessing heavy arterial traffic which are of 60 feet width or narrower, will be identified for improvements. A budget of Rs 150 crore has been allocated towards resolving the bottleneck issues on these roads. Additionally, the white topping work of 150 km of road is scheduled to take place in 2023-24, with an estimated cost of Rs 1,410 crore. White topping is carried out to prevent the formation of potholes and to provide roads offering better rideability.