Delhi will receive ₹1,168 crore from the Centre in 2024-25 for various purposes, including compensation for victims of 1984 riots, grants in lieu of share in central taxes and duties, contribution to Union Territory Disaster Response Fund, and Central assistance for externally aided projects. Delhi finance minister Atishi on Tuesday said the Union Budget 2024-25 “betrayed” the people of Delhi, who pay ₹2.32 lakh crore in tax annually, as they did not get funds for infrastructure development, sanitation and beautification. Leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said the budget appeared to be “saving the BJP government”, alleging “it has not been designed for the welfare of the people.”
However, Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party unit chairman Virendra Sachdeva claimed that the AAP administration was misleading the people of Delhi about financial allocations, and that the Centre had provided “much more” than what the Delhi government requested under several service areas.
Addressing a press conference at the Delhi secretariat, Atishi said: “In 2023, the people of Delhi contributed ₹2,07,000 crore in income tax to the Centre and ₹25,000 crore in CGST. Together, they paid ₹2,32,000 crore in taxes to the Centre. The people of Delhi demanded 5% of the taxes for infrastructure development, and an additional 5% should be given to Delhi for sanitation and beautification purposes. The people of Delhi only demanded ₹20,000 crore from the Centre. Delhi’s demand was only 0.4% of the total value of the Union budget. Despite that, the Centre did not give a single rupee.”
According to budget documents, Delhi will receive ₹1,168 crore from the Centre in 2024-25 under various heads, such as compensation for the 1984 riots victims, grants in lieu of share in central taxes and duties, contribution to Union Territory Disaster Response Fund and Central assistance for externally aided projects, such as the Chandrawal water treatment plant.
To be sure, the same amount was earmarked for Delhi under similar heads in 2023-24 budget.
“The people of Delhi demanded budgetary allocations for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi in line with the budgetary allocations Centre makes for different urban local bodies of the country. Not even a single rupee has been given to the MCD of the total of ₹82,207 crore earmarked for different urban local bodies,” Atishi said.
“The budget document shows that ₹1,24,000 crore would be given to different states as part of devolution of taxes, but not a single rupee has been given to Delhi,” Atishi said.
Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva said that against a demand of 10%, Delhi was getting 30% of its tax share.
“Delhi government was demanding 10% of direct taxes collected from Delhi, which is around ₹21,000 crore, but the budget gives back almost 30% of the tax collected from Delhi under various service heads. The direct budgetary allocation for Delhi is ₹1,168 crore, apart from ₹11,180 crore for operational costs of Delhi Police along with ₹220 crore for infrastructure development of the city,” Sachdeva said.
“Other allocations for Delhi come under heads of Delhi Metro, NHAI, RRTS, NDMC operational costs, budgets of various central hospitals of Delhi, such as AIIMS and RML, cost of pensions to Delhi government employees and budgets of central universities. These all add up to over ₹50,000 crore, which is around 30% of direct taxes collected from Delhi,” Sachdeva said.
Meanwhile, AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh termed the budget one to “save the government – increase inflation”, alleging it had nothing for women, youth, farmers, businessmen and employees.
“The share market has gone down after the budget was presented. This means that the market did not like this budget. The country’s farmers were expecting MSP for their crops to be doubled but the government has not made any provision for it. The budget has also betrayed the youth of the country. Along with the youth, NDA’s constituent parties also demanded the abolition of the Agniveer scheme, but the government did not fulfil their demand either,” Sanjay Singh said in a press conference at the AAP headquarters.
Atishi described the budget “anti-youth, anti-farmer”.
“The budget has not been designed for the people of the country but to save its (BJP) government, no steps have been taken to check unemployment, they have promised internship to the youth in place of providing them jobs. The allocation for health has been reduced from 1.98% in 2023 to 1.85% now, but they talk about providing good health…the fertiliser subsidy has been reduced from ₹25,000 crore to ₹16,000 crore. It is anti-youth and anti-farmer budget,” Atishi said.
Sachdeva, however, said the budget was a “cohesive development-oriented” one, especially beneficial for youth and women.
“For another decade or more, India has to work on an agenda of home for all and apparently, with this in mind, the budgetary provisions for Awas Yojna (home scheme) has been increased. But, it is unfortunate that Awas Yojna investment increase done in the budget 2024-25 is unlikely to benefit the poor of Delhi as the Kejriwal government is not allowing implementation of central housing schemes in Delhi. The budget is beneficial for women and youth, as it directly allows income tax relief for newly employed youth, especially of small towns, taking up secondary and tertiary jobs. The 50% standard deduction relief is going to benefit the entire salaried class,” Sachdeva said.
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