BMC infra spend at 19.4k cr as rds, bridges lead capital outlay

MUMBAI: As the BMC prepares to table its 2026-27 financial budget later this month, a reply to a Right to Information (RTI) query filed by the TOI offers a snapshot of how aggressively the country's richest civic body spent on infrastructure this year.In the 2025-26 budget, the BMC earmarked a hefty Rs 43,162 crore for capital expenditure. The total budget size was Rs 74,427.41 crore. An RTI seeking department-wise spending details shows that Rs 19,443 crore was already spent so far this financial year. Infrastructure-heavy departments account for the bulk of the expenditure. The Roads and Traffic Department saw the highest outlay, with projects worth Rs 3,365 crore, followed by bridges (Rs 2,940 crore) and the Mumbai Sewage Disposal Department (Rs 3,767 crore).

These departments are currently at the heart of some of the city's largest ongoing works. Road concretisation - an ambitious push to convert all of Mumbai's roads into concrete - is underway across the city.Several key bridge projects also moved closer to completion, with the Carnac Bridge (now renamed the Indore Bridge) already opened last year. Bellasis Bridge and the Goregaon Flyover were completed this year and are expected to open soon, while work on the Sion Bridge is expected to wrap up before the onset of the monsoon.

Meanwhile, sewerage infrastructure is also seeing a major push, with the Sewerage Disposal Department working at full pace to construct 7 sewage treatment plants across Mumbai.

With a large chunk of contractor bills typically cleared towards the end of the financial year, civic officials indicate that capital expenditure in 2025-26 could comfortably cross Rs 27,955 crore-the amount spent in 2024-25-signalling yet another year of record infrastructure spending by the civic body.

Last year, the BMC spent the largest amount in its history as capital expenditure.The past year's capital expenditure spending showed that the civic body spent year-on-year below Rs 20,000 crore, barring the last financial year, on capital expenditure, which largely involved infrastructure-related works done in the city. However, large-scale works, including the Goregaon Mulund Link Road (GMLR), for which work is in progress, and the upcoming coastal road north from Versova to Bhayander, taken up by the civic body, saw it allocate large sums to capital expenditure.However, with all this, the civic body's liability sharply increased, crossing Rs 2 lakh crore, forcing the BMC to consider floating bonds, something that it did not yet do. An official said, "There are discussions around looking at InvITs that are commonly used in India in case of highways (NHAI's InvIT is the biggest example). InvIT (Infrastructure Investment Trusts) pools money from investors and uses it to own or finance revenue-generating infrastructure assets.

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