Sisodia presents Rs 60,000 cr Delhi budget

New Delhi, Feb 26 : Delhi Finance Minister Manish Sisodia here on Tuesday presented the fifth and last budget of this Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Assembly, proposing a total expenditure of Rs 60,000 crore in 2019-2020, with education continuing to enjoy the highest outlay.

The budget estimate for 2019-20 is Rs 60,000 crore, double of the 2014-15 budget, he said.

Delhi's budget was Rs 53,000 crore in 2018-19 and Rs 44,370 crore for 2017-18. "Before the AAP came to power, total expenditure of Delhi was Rs 30,940 crore in 2014-15," the Minister said.

Stating that the Delhi budget is "self-financed and about 95 per cent of total budget is from own resources", Sisodia said.

The proposed budget will be financed by Rs 42,500 crore from tax revenue, Rs 800 crore from non-tax revenue, Rs 325 crore from share in central taxes, Rs 4,786 crore from small saving loans, capital receipts of Rs 750 crore, compensation of Rs 3,000 crore under GST, Rs 300 crore from externally-aided projects, Rs 2,558 crore from centrally-sponsored schemes, Rs 534 crore as the central grant-in-aid and the remaining from the opening balance.

Education again received the highest allocation of 26 per cent with Rs 7,818 crore earmarked for implementation of programmes, schemes and projects.



Health is close second with a proposed outlay of Rs 7,485 crore.

Sisodia said the per capita income of Delhi is estimated at Rs 3,65,529 in 2018-19, which is an increase of 11 per cent over the per capita income of Rs 3,28,985 in 2017-18.

"The per capita income has gone up by 34 per cent since our government came to power in 2015-16 when it was Rs 2,73,301.

The per capita income of Delhi is about three times higher than the national average, which is estimated to be Rs 1,25,397 in 2018-19.

The contribution of Delhi to the national GDP also increased from 3.97 per cent in 2014-15 to 4.14 per cent in 2018-19 though we are only 1.4 per cent of the total population," Sisodia said.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal hailed it as "everyone's budget".

"In five years, we have doubled the budget. While the economy of the country had gone down due to GST and demonetisation, that of Delhi is growing and booming," he said.

Sisodia dedicated the budget to security personnel, including those killed in the Pulwama attack.

--IANS

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Source: IANS