Questioning AAP Government’s proposed ‘zero tax Budget’ in the Delhi Assembly, Delhi Congress president and former Union Minister Ajay Maken said if the claim was true, then why VAT on petrol and diesel was hiked twice in the last one year.
Dissecting the Delhi Budget threadbare, Maken said the AAP Government had failed in the revenue collection, as there was a 7.63 per cent shortfall in revenue collection. He said compared to previous years when Congress was in power in Delhi, this is a Budget of highest shortfall in tax collection.
The Congress leader compared to the target set last year, there was a shortfall of Rs3,000 crore in VAT collection, which shows a shortfall of 12.5 per cent and there was a also fall in growth.
He said in the present Budget, an increase of 10.53 per cent in sales tax has shown, which was being projected as a very high figure, though if it was compared to the Congress regime’s financial year in 2010-2011, there was an increase of 26 per cent and 17.86 per cent in 2012-2013, and those figures were far higher.
He said on the other hand, the present Budget has pegged VAT collection at 13.63 per cent, whereas when Congress was in power it was 18.28 per cent in 2010-2011, 29.17 per cent in 2011-12 and 24.99 per cent in 2012.2013. Maken claimed that under the AAP Government, the VAT collection has witnessed a historic slump.
Maken said the AAP Government had also totally failed in the spending of Plan funds, as out of Rs19,000 crores, only Rs11,900 crores were spent upto March 21, 2016, where as Delhi Finance Minister Manish Sisodia, in his Budget speech, had claimed that the Government had spent Rs16,400 crores. He said this meant that the AAP Government spent Rs4,500 crores in ten days, though the Finance Minister had said in his Budget speech that the Government was very careful in spending public money.
He said there is also shortfall in spending Plan funds. He said there was a big gap in Plan and non-Plan spending and because of that, development works have come to a standstill.
The Congress leader said in the present Budget, the allocation for publicity has been reduced to Rs200 crore from the Rs526 crore in the previous Budget. He said it was still ten times more than the Rs24 crores allocated by the Congress.