If you are a pedestrian or a BEST bus commuter, then the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation thinks little of you. If you own or drive cars, especially on the coastal road, then the civic body believes that it must spend lavishly on you. This much is clear in the fine print of the BMC budget 2026-27 presented on Wednesday.

The civic budget outlay for the next financial year is pegged at a staggering Rs 80,952 crore—let’s say almost Rs 81,000 crore—substantially higher than last year’s revised estimates of Rs 67,417 crore. In many ways, it is an unsettling budget, and the devil, as always, lies in the details. Details such as the spending on certain projects that the municipal corporation seems driven by an invisible force to undertake or expand at the cost of public funds and Mumbai’s ecology.

Roads over public transport

In this budget, Municipal Commissioner Bhushan Gagrani said that the capital expenditure surpasses revenue expenditure. It sounds reassuring until you unpack the details. Nearly 42 per cent of the capex is reserved for only four projects, namely, the coastal road (north and last leg), Goregaon-Mulund Link Road, ongoing road concretisation, and wastewater treatment facilities. Of these four, the coastal road extension and the GMLR carry a tag of Rs 4,700 crore and Rs 2,650 crore, respectively. This is a total spend of Rs 7,350 crore on extending or constructing two roads that are almost entirely for the use of Mumbaikars using private vehicles.

What else has been allocated a similar sum? The entire public health system of........

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