City's urban infra Budget sees rise
New Delhi: The Delhi government's Budget Estimates for FY 2021-22, presented by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Tuesday, revealed that the allocation for housing and urban development had been increased by more than Rs 1,500 crore to Rs 5,328 crore, which includes a separate allocation of Rs 1,550 crore for the development of unauthorised colonies.
Finance Minister Sisodia spoke passionately about his government's drive to work towards bringing public utilities like sewer connections, piped water and roads to the slums and unauthorised colonies of the city, in his Budget speech.
He said that construction work of these facilities was complete in 1,345 of the 1,797 identified unauthorised colonies and that the allocation was being made for the rest of the colonies. Moreover, the Delhi government has said it has been able to connect 93 per cent of Delhi's unauthorised colonies to piped water supply and all unauthorised colonies except for the 113 that are waiting for an ASI no objection clearance will have piped water in the next two years.
1,622 unauthorised colonies have been covered in the network of pipeline water supply.
In addition to this, the Delhi government has decided to spend Rs 3,274 crore for water supply and sanitation projects of the Delhi Jal Board and over Rs 500 crore for the building, repairing and beautifying the Capital's road infrastructure.
Significantly, of the total Budgetary allocation of the Delhi Jal Board, Rs 600 crore is earmarked for 20 kilolitres of free water under the Delhi government's water subsidy scheme, which is benefiting about 6 lakh residents in the city every month, according to the Deputy CM.
Moreover, a large part of the water spending will also focus on setting up the required rainwater harvesting infrastructure by the time monsoons arrive this year. The Finance Minister said that 585 of its targetted 771 installations already had this system and the rest would have to be finished by this monsoon.
Among key projects for road infrastructure, the Delhi government has allocated up to Rs 85 crore for decongesting the Ashram Chowk, where roadworks often cause traffic disruptions to lakhs of commuters every day. With an outlay of Rs 35 crore, the Delhi government plans to finish the Ashram Underpass by June this year to ease traffic on Mathura Road and Ashram crossing and with Rs 50 crore, the government plans to extend the Ashram flyover to the DND flyover by December this year, which the Deputy CM said would benefit road users between Noida and Lajpat Nagar as well as ITO and Lajpat Nagar.
Among other key road infrastructure projects announced in the Budget, three big schemes are the East-West Corridor (elevated and tunnel road between Tikriand Anand Vihar), the North-South Corridor (elevated and tunnel road from the Signature Bridge to the airport) and an outer road running parallel to the Yamuna from the Signature Bridge to Sarai Kale Khan - all three await the approval of the UTPAC.
Most other road projects include those to decongest important and busy intersections and beautifying around 500 kms of roads.
