'Final jumla' of Modi govt, says Kejriwal
NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal on Friday called the Interim Budget for 2019-20 the "final jumla" of the Modi government.
"Final jumla of Modi government: its Interim Budget too completely disappoints Delhi," AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal tweeted. In a different tweet he said that the government should invest in education and health.
"Invest heavily in edu n health, Increase min wages n enforce it, Give crop prices 1.5 times cost, ne time farm loan waiver.This wud put money in pocket of poorest, create demand, give boost to economy n create jobs. None of it done in budget," the Delhi CM tweeted. Adding to this AAP leader Raghav Chadha said: "The current unemployment rate in the country is highest in the past 45 years, yet there was no discussion in Parliament today on how the number of jobs can be increased."
Meanwhile, FM of Delhi Manish Sisodia noted that in the Budget 2019-20, Government of India has not earmarked any funds to Local Bodies in Delhi although we had requested for allocation of at least Rs 1,000 crore as basic and performance grants to Local Bodies in Delhi in 2018-19 and Rs 1,150 crore in 2019-20. "We are providing 12.5% of our 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," he said.
"The Delhi Government deserves its legitimate share in Central Taxes to finance various developmental projects. We had requested the Government of India a number of times to enhance the allocation to at least Rs 6,000 crore as share in Central Taxes as against Rs 325 crore being released to Delhi. The Budget of Delhi has increased from Rs 8,739 crore in the year 2001-02 to Rs 53,000 crore in 2018-19 (BE), whereas the share in Central Taxes has remained frozen at Rs 325 crore since 2001-02", he further added.
"However, the expenditure of Delhi on Schemes/Programmes has increased by seven times from Rs 3,129 crore in 2000-01 to Rs 22,000 crore in 2018-19(BE). The Normal Central Assistance which was 11.8% of the Scheme/programme expenditure in 2000-01 has declined to 2.04 % in 2018-19 (BE). We had requested to increase the Normal Central Assistance to at least Rs 1,300 crore in the current year RE and Rs 1,500 crore in 2019-20 BE. However, in the Budget, an amount of Rs 472 crore as an Additional Central Assistance has been proposed in 2019-20 (BE) as against Rs 450 crore in the current year," said Sisodia.
