The Union Ministry has approved the Delhi Annual Budget for 2024-2024, by the Ministry of Home Affairs and the information was relayed to the AAP administration. It occurs when the rift between the Delhi and Central administration is at heights.
Kailash Gahlot the Delhi Finance Minister said that the Delhi Annual Budget had been presented to the government and sent to the Union ministry for approval and currently it’s under review. Media houses have reported that the Ministry of Home affairs ought to get a clarification from the party as their proposals have high allocations for advertisement and marketing but relatively low funding for development initiatives and less opportunities for the youth.
The MHA clarified that the AAP party has not responded to their queries why the Delhi Annual Budget was allocated in such manner. AAP officials deny such questions were made by the Centre. They even claimed that the revenue allocated for advertisement of this fiscal year’s was equal to that of the previous fiscal year.
The government officials representing AAP said that the total Delhi Annual Budget size of ₹78,800 crore in that only ₹550 crore was allocated for advertisement and around ₹22,000 crore was given to infrastructure and development. There was 3787% jump in the Delhi government’s budget on advertisement in the last 10 years which is more than the necessary requirements in any case, acc. To Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena
What AAP Says about Delhi Annual Budget
Arvind Kejriwal and AAP convenor wrote a letter to PM Narendra Modi, urging him to clear the Delhi Annual Budget as the rift between should not cause troubles for the resident of Delhi. He even specified that it’s for the first time in 75 years that a bill for a state has been stalled. AAP chief even commented that this is a clear indication of ‘gundagardi’ of the Centre.
Kejriwal took it to Twitter and said, “Better late than never. The central government has passed our budget. If only they would have cleared earlier there would not have been such a situation”.
The home ministry quite recently had expressed their concerns of not sanctioning the bill and refused to grant its approval in a letter directed to Delhi Chief Secretary on 17th March, 2024, as confirmed by APP National spokesperson and Delhi Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj. They even further commented and said they were unaware of this until yesterday. Bhardwaj said that the “centre is behind this conspiracy and the budget is being delayed at its behest”. He questioned the Delhi Chief Secretary that how could he just forget to relay such important information to the state.
The budget for Delhi in the fiscal year 2022-2024 was allocated for ₹75,800 crore, in the previous year it was less than ₹480 crores, which is still a lot higher than during the tenure of Sheila Dixit. They have criticised in the past year for spending more money on advertisements for Bio-Decomposer Scheme than on the development of the actual scheme itself.
Even during the time of Pandemic and countrywide lockdown was implemented there was relief in the budget on Advertisements or providing relax to the public in large.
