Budget to benefit few big cos, common man will suffer: CM
New Delhi: After the Central Government announced the new budget, Delhi's Finance Minister Manish Sisodia criticised the "step-motherly treatment" from the Centre in the budget 2020-2021 as the Capital saw no increase in its share in Central Taxes and was only allocated Rs 325 crore even though Delhiites pay Rs 1.5 lakh crore as tax, he pointed out.
Meanwhile, CM Arvind Kejriwal took to Twitter to share his disapproval of the union budget. He wrote, "This budget will benefit only a few big companies. This budget will work to increase the problems of common people due to inflation."
Sisodia also said that the Municipal Corporations were once again left high and dry with zero allocation against its demand of Rs 12,000 crore. However, other state civic bodies have been granted Rs 2 lakh crores but the MCDs have been completely left out.
"The Delhi government is providing 12.5 per cent of its annual net tax collection to the Local Bodies, however, the Local Bodies in Delhi are not getting any financial support from the Government of India. This happened despite BJP had in 2017, before the MCD elections publicly declared that they would get funds for the MCDs directly from the Centre. What happened to their promise ?" he questioned.
He also said that the UT of Jammu & Kashmir, which is constitutionally on a similar footing with Delhi, has been provided a grant of Rs 30,757 crore as against Rs 957 crore to Delhi.
"Delhi continues to get step-motherly treatment from the Government of India. The grant in lieu of share in Central Taxes provided in the Union Budget 2021-22 has been kept unchanged for two decades at Rs 325 crore. The total grants/loans/transfer from Government of India to Delhi has been reduced from Rs 1,116 crore to Rs 957 crore," he said.
The State Finance Minister while expressing his disappointment said that the people had high hopes from the Centre in the Union Budget given the Corona crisis which devastated many people.
He said, "Grant towards Disaster Response reduced from Rs 161 crore to Rs 5 crore. Additional Central Assistance for projects reduced from Rs 150 crore to zero."
"There are three Union Territories with Legislature in India. Delhi gets the least amount of grant in absolute terms and ridiculously low amount in terms of per capita grant from Government of India," he added.
