Of the Rs 19,000-crore budgetary allocation earmarked for the planned projects, the Arvind Kejriwal Government has been able to spend just Rs 11,900 crore barely a week before the Budget for the next fiscal will be presented in the Delhi Assembly. The Government is also planning to scale down allocation for planned projects to Rs 16,400 crore in its Budget proposals to be announced on Monday.
Top sources told The Pioneer that the current expenditure is barely almost 65 per cent of the Budget earmarked under the plan head for 2015-16. The AAP Government has also decided to reduce the plan Budget from Rs 19,000 crore to Rs 16,400 crore in the current fiscal year ending on March 31. This would be announced in the annual Budget that would be presented on March 28 in the House of Delhi Assembly.
Interestingly, the Government had earlier allocated Rs 526 crore for its publicity in the current fiscal year. Unable to spend, the department of information and publicity (DIP) has returned the amount of Rs 400 crore to the Finance Department. At later stage, it has returned back Rs 30 crore more to the Finance Department.
The AAP Government, which has time and again been demanding additional annual budgetary allocation of Rs 5,000 crore from the Centre, has itself been able to spend only about 65 per cent of the total money it had allocated in its Budget for the current financial fiscal. The Government, which had allocated Rs 41,129 crore for 2015-16 fiscal, had earmarked a sum of Rs 19,000 crore for the planned projects.
Several reasons are being attributed to the low expenditure under the expenditure. First and foremost reason being cited by experts is the absence of any new big infrastructure project taken up by the Government in the current financial year. Apart from this, the huge allocations earmarked for Health and Education sectors for opening of new school and hospitals are lying idle. As of now, only 25 new school buildings are in the pipeline and no new hospital has come up this year. Despite promising to open 1,000 Mohalla Clinics in its last Budget speech, the government has been able to open just one such clinic so far.
Of the planned funds, the AAP Government till January 31 had ended up spending just 46.38 per cent on education, 40.56 per cent on medical institutions and 61.81 per cent on public health. In all, the Government was able to spend only 49.58 per cent of the total plan expenditure till January 31. A senior officer said all the planned funds could not be exhausted as the AAP Government was not “mindlessly spending” on any of the ongoing projects several projects.