This year's budget aims to continue many past initiatives

Ashwin Mahesh

Before the presentation of the budget, it was anticipated that since a large sum had to be allocated to pay for the different promises made by the government during the election campaign, there would not be much room for significant new announcements. And that has more or less turned out to be true. This year's budget is aimed at continuing as many things from the past as possible.

One implication of this is that there is no new money for doing the much-needed things, and allocations for various schemes and departments will be as they were earlier. But there is also a second, more important implication - there is also no space made in the budget for new ideas about how development should move forward.

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The Bengaluru portion of the budget speech is quite sobering. It begins by saying that outstanding payments linked to incomplete projects, many of which are wasteful, will take up not only money but also time. Therefore, we are told, it will take more than five years to set the past right. For the moment, therefore, we should be content with routine expenditure on most things, and a little money to address bits and pieces of large problems.

As a result, we have more white-topping of roads, more sewage treatment capacity, slightly better waste management, etc. For really big things that cost serious money, the government will 'endeavour' to do more but those things are not budgeted for at this time.

This will disappoint a lot of people, but it is an inevitable consequence of previous choices. We knew perfectly well that it would cost a lot of money to fund the welfare announcements made during polls. Therefore we should not be surprised that the immediate result of that is to have less money for other things, even if they are also urgently needed.

To make a difference this time, the chief minister could have thought more in terms of governance reforms and better administration. A lot of money that is spent in public works and other expenditure doesn't produce the right outcome because of poor processes in the public sector. With not enough funds to make a big difference to the city, it is the right time to look at other ways of making impactful changes.

The Master Plan is still stuck. The BMLTA has not begun to coordinate mobility projects as it was intended to. The Metropolitan Planning Committee has no members and has done zero work. Ward committees have no voice in local projects. BDA does not reserve land for rental housing. These things, and many others like them, can easily be changed at little or no cost. And their impact will be momentous. Even without money, such changes will point us towards a very different future.

Will it get better next year, if the revenues of the state is better? The government will surely be hoping so. But if that's the case, it should have given itself more reason to hope for more inflows in the future by taking key steps to ensure that. We're in it for the long haul.

(The author is an urbanist)