The plan of rebuilding old schools is put on hold by BMC citing a lack of funds.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has paused the repairing and reconstruction work at the municipal schools costing Rs 150-crore due to the lack of funds. There is a total of 36 schools in the city where the repair and reconstruction work has to be done. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has been alleged by the Samajwadi party MLA and Corporator Rais Shaikh stating that they had misplaced priorities and were spending money on beautification projects rather than core civic amenities.

 

The Samajwadi Party MLA further stated that “How even is this possible that India’s richest civic body the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) having giant-sized fixed deposit despite the costs it has had to experience during Covid, state the reason of lack of funds for not repairing civic schools? If the corporation can spend thousands of crores in monsoon work that is of no use anyway, why hold back on education and the infrastructure that can fall anytime taking the lives of children?”

 

As stated in the budget this year the money allocated by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for education was Rs 2,945.78 crore which was higher than that of the last year’s budget of Rs 2944.59 crore. “The schools are in very bad shape, the Shivaji Nagar Municipal School had 3,000 students before Covid-19, the school is about to collapse but Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has kept its reconstruction on hold,” Shaikh added. 

 

“These buildings will be unsafe for the kids when the school reopens. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) should stop spending on unnecessary beautification but ensure school buildings are reconstructed and repaired. The whole project was prepared but suddenly they have put this on hold,” he said. This year in its budget, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation dipped into fixed deposits and took out Rs 10,564 crore as a loan to meet its rising expenditure. The administration took an internal interest-free loan instead of raising money from the market through bonds.