New Delhi: The Delhi Assembly unanimously passed the Budget tabled by finance minister Manish Sisodia on Wednesday through voice vote.
The 48,000-crore Budget, of which 24 per cent has been allocated to the education sector, 12 per cent to the healthcare and 11 per cent to the transport sector, was passed without any amendments. In a huge relief to the people, the national capital’s first “outcome Budget” has not imposed any new taxes.
Earlier, participating in the discussion on the Delhi Budget, Mr Sisodia, who is also the deputy chief minister, said that the Budget will remove “fear” from the lives of people. “The governments are run by two methods — either by scaring the people or alleviating people’s fears. The Aam Aadmi Party is leading a government of which the people are not scared. The people are not scared of the income-tax raids, slum dwellers are not scared of their homes getting razed, the patients are not scared of lack of proper treatment and the common people are not scared of rise in power tariff or escalating water bills,” he said.
Taking a dig at the Opposition’s allegations, Mr Sisodia said that if they want to see the real outcome of the Budget, they should see the “change in the lives of the people”. “That is the real outcome,” he said. He also said that contrary to the claims of the Opposition, the Budget has provisions for the AAP government’s ambitious schemes, including the wi-fi project. Mr Sisodia attacked Leader of the Opposition in the Delhi Assembly Vijendar Gupta’s half-baked knowledge to criticise the Budget tabled by him.
Earlier, health minister Satyendar Jain said that the AAP government has achieved works in the city in the last two years, which could be done in the last 70 years. He said that this year 4 crore people consulted the OPDs of the government hospitals compared to 3 crore last year.
OPDs of the government hospitals He said that this year, 4 million people in hospitals OPD, OPD shown in the previous year 3 million people had shown. Tourism Minister Kapil Mishra pointed out the poor state of primary education in the schools run by the MCDs. He said that in the AAP government has built 12 colleges in the last two years, while a new University campus is under construction.
Leader of Opposition expressed concerns that the AAP government has been presenting deficit Budget year after year. He said that 80 per cent of the budget is being spent on salary, wages and other administrative responsibilities. Only 20 per cent Budget is spent on development works. “The government has taken pride inannouncing that it has made an allocation of Rs. 7571 crores to the Local Bodies in 2017-18. It is sad that in view of poor financial position of North and East Municipal Corporations, the government has not recovered outstanding loan liabilities during the last two years from the grants being released to them. He hid the fact that the Government will continue to lay the 13 per cent interest for the period and it propose to recover 797 crores during the coming financial year,” he said.
