New Delhi: Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Saturday presented the "Rozgaar Budget" for FY 2022-23 with an outlay of Rs 75,800 crore — focussing on creating as many as 20 lakh jobs in the next five years with plans starting from an electronic city and a food truck policy to schemes for promoting night-time economy and retail and wholesale shopping.
While governments have often presented budgets with the promise of job creation, the Delhi government's 'Rozgaar Budget' has for the first time provided for a plan to ascertain how many of these jobs are actually being created.
The Delhi government will conduct a survey to ascertain how many people got employment as a result of expenditure incurred on different programmes and schemes, Sisodia said, adding: "Every rupee of the budget passed by this House, whether that money is being spent in the field of education and health or is being used to build roads, buildings, bridges, schools, hospitals, colleges, electricity, water system, call centres, art culture etc... a complete account of how many people got employment as a result of every rupee spent will be kept."
"For this, the government is coming up with a plan of employment audit of each department. This in itself will be the first step in the country," the deputy chief minister said, adding that the goal of their government was to increase the number of employed people from 33 per cent to 45 per cent of the over 1.68 crore people who are qualified in the city.
The budget size for the next financial year is 9.86 per cent higher than that of the previous year — Rs 69,000 crore — Sisodia said, adding that Delhi's economy is recovering gradually from the impact of Covid. "The Rozgar Budget will take the economy of Delhi on the path of progress and generate lakhs of employment opportunities," he asserted.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal lauded his deputy for presenting a budget that had "taken care of" every section of society, even as the Opposition BJP and Congress claimed it was nothing but a "bundle of lies".
"Many congratulations to Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister Manish Sisodia for presenting the 'Rozgar Budget' for Delhi. This budget will create employment on a large scale for youngsters. Every section of Delhi has been taken care of in this budget," he said in a tweet in Hindi.
"Back in 2015 when we presented our government's first budget, it was of Rs 31,000 crore. Today, seven years down the line, we have presented a budget of around Rs 76,000 crore – having increased 2.5 times since the first one in 2015... [this] is a result of the arduous and honest hard work – where we put an end to corruption, unnecessary government expenditures, fixed leakages in revenue sources and spending."
Noting that the common public faces two main obstacles — employment and inflation — he said the Delhi Budget 2022-23 predominantly solves the twin issues.
"I highly doubt that a mechanism to generate employment on such a large scale with creative and innovative solutions as the Delhi Budget presents has ever been attempted before by any government in the past. In the last seven years, the Delhi government has ensured around 12 lakh job opportunities for the youth of Delhi. Out of these, 1,78,000 jobs were created in the government sector, while around 10 lakh in the private sector.
"Today the Budget was presented in the Vidhan Sabha, and within that a blueprint outlining the generation of 20 lakh jobs in the next five years was introduced. It is an extremely bold and innovative budget, for which I wholeheartedly congratulate our Finance Minister Manish Sisodia and his team," he said.
In the 2022-23 budget, the health sector has been allotted Rs 9,669 crore, while the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government has set aside Rs 16,278 crore for education.
Presenting the budget for the eighth consecutive year, Sisodia, who also holds the finance portfolio, said the city government will spend Rs 4,500 crore in the next five years to generate 20 lakh jobs and Rs 800 crore will be set aside in the 2022-23 budget for the purpose.
Talking about the budget allocation for the health sector, Sisodia said an amount of Rs 1,900 crore has been proposed to upgrade the state-run hospitals. An amount of Rs 475 crore has been set aside for "Mohalla Clinics" and polyclinics in the 2022-23 budget.
"We have dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic, but all of us are aware of the severe damage it has caused to the social and economic progress of the country. Delhi is no exception to this," he said.
The deputy chief minister said drinking water availability has increased by 10 per cent, adding that the Yamuna river will be completely cleaned in the next two years.
Of major allocations other than the Health and Education departments, the Delhi government has allotted Rs 9,539 crore for Transport, Roads and Public Infrastructure, Rs 7,610 crore for Water and Sanitation, Rs 5,766 crore for Housing and Urban Development.