While the pandemic losses have already affected development work this year, financial setbacks due to COVID-19 will also hit allocations for projects in the financial year 2021-22, which happens to be an election year.

This will be reflected in BMC's budget for next year, work on which has started, a report said in this paper. After reducing Rs 2,500 crore from capital expenditure this year, civic departments have been told to cut requirements by 20 per cent to 25 per cent for 2021-22. The BMC had presented a Rs 33,441-crore budget for 2020-21, out of which Rs 14,647 crore was allotted as capital expenditure for projects.