Plan to geotag properties, fix sewerage system, host Tulip Festival this year: NDMC chairman

 Hosting a Tulip Festival, rehabilitation of the sewerage system and geotagging of all properties are some of the areas that the NDMC will focus on in the 2024-25 financial year, Chairman Amit Yadav announced on Wednesday in his Budget speech.

“The total receipts of the budget estimates 2024-25 are Rs. 5,069.63 crore against Rs. 4,888.93 crore provided in the revised estimate 2023-24. The total actual receipts in 2022-23 were Rs 4,302.79 crore,” he said.

The NDMC has focussed on systemic structural interventions for better governance in this financial year, Yadav said.

NDMC has procured two lakh tulip bulbs for the winter to enhance the city’s aesthetics and to add colour to its landscape, he said, adding that the civic body is planning to make the Tulip Festival an annual event.

Noting that the city infrastructure needs to be upgraded with passage of time, Yadav said the NDMC has asked the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs to sanction projects worth Rs 556 crore under the Urban Development Fund (UDF) scheme for rehabilitation of the NDMC sewerage system.

“This will enable NDMC to augment the sewerage system in a phased manner within a span of five years,” he said.

The NDMC is also working on an amendment to the NDMC Act, 1994 to align with current global best practices, he said.

“As part of our tax reform process we will implement geotagging of all properties starting from the next financial year i.e. 2024-25. Geotagging will mandate uploading the photos of taxpayers’ properties through mobile app or the NDMC website for easy identification and tracking,” he said.

Yadav also announced that the Charak Palika Hospital will soon get an ICU facility and blood storage unit. “The work regarding procurement of equipment for ICU is in advanced stages and likely to be completed by March, 2024,” he said.

Yadav said NDMC has created an Innovation Fund’, and a committee will be set up to lay down the modalities for projects. “The first of such projects: bioremediation-based innovative hybrid technology is being used to clean the partial open portion of Kushak nallah from 11 Murthi SP Marg to Kemal Ataturk Marg about 2 km in length,” he said.

“It is proposed that this fund will be used for a long-term solution that ensures that untreated water does not flow into Kushak Nala or Yamuna,” he added. Yadav also announced that a comprehensive project for upgradation of dhobi ghats’ will be launched.