Of Rs 19,000 crore budget, government spent just Rs 11,900 crore

Of the Rs 19,000 crore budgetary allocation earmarked for planned projects, the AAP government was able to spend just Rs 11,900 crore till a week before it was to present its budget for the next fiscal in the Delhi Assembly. The city government is also planning to announce its scaled down allocation for the planned projects to Rs 16,400 crore in its budget proposals to be announced on Monday.

The current expenditure is barely 65 per cent of the estimated amount earmarked under the plan head for 2015-16. Data collected by this newspaper indicates that it will be tough for the government to meet even the revised estimated allocation of Rs 16,400 crore. While the government is busy portraying that it has done better than all the previous governments on developmental projects, the data related to its own expenditure presents an altogether different picture.

The AAP government, which has time and again been demanding additional annual budgetary allocation of Rs 5,000 crore from the Centre, has itself been able to spend only about 65 per cent of the total money it had allocated in its Budget for the current fiscal. The government, which had allocated Rs 41,129 crore for 2015-16 fiscal, had earmarked a sum of Rs 19,000 crore for the planned projects.

Several reasons are being attributed to the low expenditure under the planned expenditure. First reason being cited by experts is the absence of any new big infrastructure project taken up by the AAP government in the current financial year. Apart from this, the big allocations marked in the name of health and education sectors were mainly attributed to opening of new schools and hospitals. As of now, only 25 new school buildings are in the pipeline and no new hospital has come up this year. Despite promising to open 1,000 mohalla clinics in the last budget, the AAP government has been able to open just one such clinic so far.

Of the planned funds, the AAP government till January 31 had spend just 46.38 per cent on education, 40.56 per cent on medical institutions and 61.81 per cent on public health. In all, the government was able to spend only 49.58 per cent of the total plan expenditure till January 31. A senior officer said all the planned funds could not be exhausted as the AAP government was not “mindlessly spending” on any of the ongoing projects. “Our primary aim is to make each and every officer accountable for each and every penny of the money they spent on any project.”

Reports related to plan expenditure show that the AAP government was able to spend just 5.97 per cent of the total Budget it had allocated for civil supplies and a mere 6.05 per cent it had allocated for the tourism sector. In the labour and labour welfare schemes, the AAP government spend about 19.65 per cent of the total planned expenditure till January 31.