Minorities Development Budget reduced by 42%, from last year’s 33.93% to 19.83 % this year.
Staff Reporter / NEW DELHI
Delhi Congress has termed the “paperless, Deshbhakti Budget” of the Aam Aadmi Party Government as a “visionless, directionless and hollow”.
Party said that it was a pointless exercise to sell a distant dream, as far away as 2047 when Delhi’s quality of living will be supposedly turned into Singapore-like, instead of addressing the existing issues, of here and now. It said that the budget proposals, instead of taking Delhi 100 years ahead, will drag it back by 100 years. They said that the reduction in the capital expenditure from 34% to 24% will impact infrastructure development, like creation of new flyovers, schools, hospitals, roads and other such facilities. Delhi Congress reiterated its demand for free Covid vaccination to all in Delhi, as the Rs 50 crore allocation for Covid vaccination was peanuts.
Addressing a joint press conference at the DPCC office, today, former Delhi Minister Prof. Kiran Walia, ex-MLA and Parliamentary secretary to the Chief Minister Anil Bhardwaj, ex-MLA and former working president of the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee Mr Rajesh Lilothai, ex-MLA Mr Anil Shastri and Mr Parvez Alam said that though the Arvind Government presents lofty Budgets, with this year’s pegged at Rs 69000 crore, which was a Rs 4000 crore jump from last year’s 65000 crore estimates, the ground reality was that Rs 6000 crore from last year’s budget remained unspent, which was a clear indication of purposeless governance. They said that Delhi’s physical deficit was one of the worst among the 4 States in the country with that dubious record. They said that a liberalized excise policy was a dangerous portent for the future of Delhi. They said that it was shocking that the Minorities Development Budget has been reduced by 42%, from last year’s 33.93% to 19.83 % this year.
Anil Bharadwaj said that the Arvind Government was trying to sell a “distant, hollow dream” to the people of Delhi through this budget, as the focus was not to tackle the present grave crisis like unemployment, economic distress of small traders, shopkeepers and small scale and house hold industries, who have been struggling to keep afloat ever since the ill-planned demonetization destroyed them, with the Covid pandemic further worsening their plight. He demanded unemployment allowance to the educated unemployed and a financial package to bail out the businesses in dire-straights.
Bhardwaj accused the AAP Government of making the youth jobless, directionless, as Delhi is the biggest city in the country with maximum unemployment. He said that a liberalized liquor policy to net Rs 7615 crore from excise revenue will not only make Delhi the “liquor Capital”, but also drive the jobless youth to their ruin. He said that the budget also does not make any proposal to tackle air pollution, adding 1000 new buses to the DTC fleet and other empty promises like adding 1300 e-buses etc.
Former Delhi Education Minister Prof. Kiran Walia said that after reading the budget proposals for the education sector, she was in a dilemma, whether to laugh or cry. She asked how can one expect from a Government to establish a “Sainik School”, which had failed to create even a single new school in the past 6 years? She wondered how can people believe the Budget proposal to appoint yoga instructors when over 50 per cent of teachers’ posts are lying vacant? She said that the proposal to establish a “Delhi Board of School Education”, will put the future of a common man’s child in darkness.
Prof Walia said that most of the proposals for the education sector had remained unfulfilled, and the flurry of announcements now will meet with a similar fate. She said that lakhs of children are out of the ambit of school education due to lack of planning and infrastructure. Prof. Kiran Walia said that the Arvind Government was trying to destroy Delhi University, and the education policy of the Government has already wrecked school education in the Capital.
Mr Rajesh Lilothia said that the Arvind Government has been painting a rosy picture for the future instead of tackling the present problems. He said that Chief Minister Arvind had promised to create two lakh toilets for the poor, but the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board has revealed that only 21586 toilets have been constructed. He said that the Arvind Government claims of allotting 1060 flats to jhuggi dwellers, but is silent about the allotment of 64000 flats constructed by the Congress government for JJ clusters. He said that the Arvind Government has not built any flat for JJ clusters in the last six years.
Mr Lilothia asked what happened to Arvind’s promise of ending manual scavenging of drains, and what happened to the 200 sewer scavenging machines which the AAP Government purported to have been bought? He said that the AAP Government reduced pension for senior citizens, and pension has not been paid to widows, handicapped and other deserving category of people.
Mr Adarsh Shastri said that the reduction in the capital expenditure will severely impact infrastructure development. He said that on the health front, Delhi needs an allocation of Rs 2578 crore for construction of new hospitals and the expansion of the bed capacity whereas only Rs 1293 crores have been allocated. He said that last year too, Rs 724 crore were allocated for the creation of new hospitals, but nothing was done. He said that the Arvind Government’s promise of setting up 1000 Mohalla Clinics in 2015 was not fulfilled, and wondered whether the announcement that 100 Mahila Mohalla Clinics will be setup, be part of the old proposal. He said that out of around 400 Mohalla Clinics created, nearly 250 clinics are not functional. Mr Shastri said that the super specialty Indira Gandhi hospital, work on which was started by the Congress Government, has not yet been completed as a new timeline has been created for its opening by the Arvind Government.