Mumbai gets a raw deal from Patil

MUMBAI: Contrary to expectations, finance minister Jayant Patil has not been that generous this time around for chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh’s Mumbai makeover dream. With only two years to go before the DF faces the election, the state budget was expected to set aside handsome allocations for Mumbai’s transformation.

But all it did was marking a meagre provision of Rs 400 crore for projects approved under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).

That’s not all. The money, too, is not exclusively for Mumbai, and covers other cities like Pune, Nagpur, Nashik, and Nanded. The viability gap funding of Rs 350 crore for the first corridor of phase I of Mumbai Metro rail, which the state was expected to bear, has also not been sanctioned.

As the state’s share under the JNNURM, the FM has come out with the following break-up in monetary allocation: 15% for cities with more than four million population and 20% for those with less than four million.

Mr Patil told the House that the Centre had sanctioned 61 projects for the entire state involving a sum of Rs 5,832 crore under the JNNURM and released the first instalment of Rs 356 crore.

This means the provision of Rs 400 crore in the 2007-08 budget will get divided into all cities that have received the central grant under the JNNURM.

Urban development gets Rs 2,203 crore in the 2007-08 outlay, but this allocation is also meant for the whole state. Later, addressing a press conference, Mr Patil said 60-70% of the urban development allocation would be spent on Mumbai only.

On Mumbai, the budget speech was mostly a compilation of projects already proposed or approved by the state government. Mr Patil said the Centre had so far approved middle Vaitarana water supply, Mumbai sewage disposal, and two flyover schemes.

The state had submitted Mumbai-specific project proposals worth Rs 21,400 crore to the Centre, of which schemes estimated to cost Rs 10,400 crore had been okayed, he added.

The government intends to implement Nhava-Sewree trans-harbour link project through private investment without any government equity, he said.