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Delhi

Centre allocates Rs 1,112 crore for Delhi

NEW DELHI: The Centre on Friday allocated Rs 1,112 crore for Delhi in the Union Budget, while keeping its share in central taxes and duties unchanged. The ruling party in Delhi termed Union Finance Minister Piyush Goyal's Budget speech an "election speech" of a government hardly four months away from its 'departure'. "The BJP government at the Centre has given step-motherly treatment to the people of Delhi. From 2001, the Centre is giving only Rs 325 crore to the Delhi government despite getting lakhs of crores of rupees collected as taxes.

As per the Finance Commission recommendation, it should be around Rs 70,000 crore," said Delhi Government's spokesperson. The figure of Rs 1,112 crore shown in 2019-20 (Budget Estimates) is mainly due to loan taken from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) under the externally aided project for a water treatment plant at Chandrawal. However, on all other parameters, it is more or less at the same level, Sisodia added.

The budget of Delhi has increased from Rs 8,739 crore in the year 2001-02 to Rs 53,000 crore in 2018-19, whereas the share in central taxes has remained frozen at Rs 325 crore since 2001-02, he said.The Delhi deputy chief minister also claimed the Centre has not allocated any funds to the local bodies in Delhi though it was requested for by the Kejriwal government. "No funds have been earmarked to local bodies in Delhi although we had requested for allocation of at least Rs 1,000 crore as basic and performance grants to them in 2018-19 (revised estimates) and Rs 1,150 crore in 2019-20 (budget estimates)," he said.

Sisodia said, the Delhi government had requested the Centre to enhance the normal central assistance to Rs 1,500 crore in 2019-20,

but it has declined by two percentage points, although the expenditure of the government on its schemes has increased to Rs 22,000 crore."We had requested (the Centre) to increase the normal central assistance to at least Rs 1,300 crore in the current year revised estimate and Rs 1,500 crore in 2019-20 budgetary estimates. However, an amount of

Rs 472 crore as an additional central assistance has been proposed in 2019-20 as against Rs 450 crore in the current year," he said.

An amount of Rs 10 crore each has been proposed under 2018-19 (RE) and 2019-20

(BE) as reimbursement of

compensation to 1984 riot victims to Delhi government, the deputy chief minister said. The Rs 5 crore proposed for the Delhi government as an assistance for the Delhi Disaster Response Fund is "negligible", he said.

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