BBMP’s budget for 2025-26 was presented on the 29th March 2025. BBMP’s budgets have tended to be around the Rs. 10,000 Crore mark with election years showing some loosening of purse strings. By those standards, the budget of 2024-25 was considered big with an outlay of Rs. 12,000 Crore for the first time since 2019-20. This year, despite it not being an election year, at least not a state election year, the budget saw an unprecedented increase to an outlay of almost Rs. 20,000 Crore.

Allocations by Head

Given all the noise in recent months about flyovers, underpasses and tunnel roads, one expected the budget to favour large infra projects and it does not disappoint. 71% of the budget is allocated to Public Works which is a large bucket that includes roads, flyovers, stormwater drains, lakes, streetlights among others. Solid Waste Management follows next with a 12% allocation or Rs. 2400 Cr.

Social welfare, education, health and urban forestry together account for less than 10% of the total budget.

Changes from the last year

Given the large increase in outlay, one would expect the outlay for all sectors to increase. However, that is not the case. While the allocation for Public Works almost doubled, with an increase of 95%, even exceeding the total outlay of 2024-25, the rest of the sectors have to make do with a total increase of less than 10%.

In fact, a closer look at the individual heads paints a varied picture. While some heads got a raise, there are sectors like education and welfare which actually got cuts despite the large increase in outlay.

While the largest gain was for Public Works followed by Town Planning and Urban Forestry, Public Education funding shrunk by 33%.

This cut is is likely to affect the quality of schools and colleges run by BBMP. A closer look at the budget shows cuts across all headers of education from O&M to Capital Expenses.

W(h)ither Social Welfare?

Social welfare spending includes heads of Pourakarmika welfare, SCs/STs, OBCs/Minorities, Disabled and Economically Weaker Sections (EWS). These include various schemes like housing and health for the different groups, training programmes, assistance in setting up businesses and learning skills among others.

Compared to last year, Pourakarmika Welfare sees the largest cut of Rs. 57 Cr or 27%. Except for Grant-in-aid schemes none of the socio-economically vulnerable groups get any increase compared to the last year.

Revised Estimates of 2024-25

While Rs. 12,469 Cr was the outlay for 2024-25, the revised estimates show that BBMP is expected to spend only Rs. 10,315 Cr of this money when March 31st rolls around. That’s 82.7% of the money being spent on the ground.

Of this, there is variation under the different headers. While public works as well as the rest of the heads show similar spending of around 82%, a closer look at the heads paints a different picture.

The spending on Public Health(61%), Education(43.7%) and Social Welfare(66.8%) were the lowest as a percentage of the outlay. In an earlier analysis we had found that except during the Covid years, spending in these three sectors tends to be very low despite having a low outlay in the first place. We had noted that the absence of a council makes it difficult to nail accountability and ensure better spending on welfare at least.

Given this record, it needs to be seen how much of the Rs. 19,900 Cr outlay for 2025-26 actually gets spent during the Financial Year.

More Roads and Flyovers

The thrust of the budget is clearly more roads, flyovers and underpasses. A closer look shows an increase from Rs. 300 Cr to Rs. 900 Cr for White Topping of roads, “maintenance and repair of arterial roads” under “Brand Bengaluru – Micro Surfacing” gets an whopping Rs. 700 Cr, up from a paltry Rs. 47.85 Cr a year ago. Sanchara Yuktha which is about developing Rajakaluve buffers sees an increase from Rs. 100 Cr to Rs. 300 Cr.

Solid Waste Management gets a 25% boost with more than half the outlay going to BSWML (Rs. 1300 Cr). The ground workers, the Pourakarmikas, see a decrease in outlay in welfare schemes targeting them.

Meanwhile, pedestrians and other important infra see only a minor allocation. Lakes get shy under Rs. 100 Cr for maintenance, repair as well as development. Stormwater drains get Rs. 64.52 Cr inclusive of maintenance and development. Footpaths have to make do with an allocation of Rs. 13.37 Cr which they share with stormwater drains and flyovers. There is no mention of cycling, cyclists or bus shelters in the entire budget.

Budgets are vision documents laying out how the presenting bodies see their jurisdictions, and how they expect to drive growth and development in the future. Going by that, the BBMP budget lays out the vision for the city clearly. Linear infrastructure projects – roads and flyovers – take up most of it. Space continues to shrink for footpaths, cyclists, stormwater drains, lakes, PHCs and hospitals, schools, Pourakarmikas and other vulnerable groups. This is not a budget shorn of irony.

[In part two of our analysis we’ll dive into “Brand Bengaluru” and what it means.]