While the focus on repairing and upgrading infrastructure has been given priority, a major change in this year’s budget has been focus on utilising water efficiently.
This year, there’s a marked difference in the MCG’s approach to budget allocation — there’s a lot of stress on the management of city’s scarce water resources. In a first, the corporation created a new category for the rejuvenation of natural water bodies, such as ponds, allocating Rs 20 crore for the purpose.
In fact, even before the allocation, the MCG had started issuing tenders to rejuvenate four ponds in the first phase of the project, which has a total of 16 ponds.
“While the focus on repairing and upgrading infrastructure has been given priority, the major change in this year’s budget has been given on utilising water efficiently. There are several projects lined up for creating sewage treatment plants (STPs) at colonies, parks, and villages. Reviving natural bodies has been stressed,” commented YS Gupta, MCG additional commissioner.
Five natural ponds at Sukhrali, Basai, Fazilpur, Jharsa, and Wazirabad have been identified, which can be used as catchment areas for storing rainwater. In addition, the municipal body have also earmarked over 400 rainwater harvesting pits, which are supposed to be ready before the arrival of monsoon this year.
To improve the city’s drainage systems, the MCG has tripled the funds in the new budget and allocated Rs 75 crore compared to last year’s Rs 25 crore.
Funds for borewells, open wells, and reservoirs has also been increased from Rs 7 crore to Rs 25 core.
The MCG also allowed a two-fold jump is repair and maintenance of infrastructure, such as roads, bridges, flyovers, water supply and traffic signals — from Rs 99.5 crore in the previous budget to Rs 225 crore this year.
Other initiatives, where funds allocated have seen a jump include the construction of a medical college, jointly with the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) in Sector 102. A total of Rs 10 crore has been reserved for the project, against Rs 5 crore last fiscal.
The funds for proposed construction of a new MCG building at a site near Vyapar Sadan has increased from Rs 20 crore last fiscal to Rs 50 crore in this budget.
