NEW DELHI: Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Monday presented an Outcome Budget for his government’s performance in 2018-19, a day before the annual budget for 2019-20 is presented in the Delhi Assembly.
Declaring that the government had successfully achieved more than 70 % output in each department during 2018-19, Sisodia blamed Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal for delays in projects.
This is the second Outcome budget that the AAP government has presented. The document acts as a progress report of government projects and aims to ensure ‘greater transparency’ in governance. It details all the hits and misses in every project undertaken by each department. It also ranks departments based on their performance.
Hitting out at Baijal, the government, in a statement, said the “Circus of transfer-posting in Delhi has crippled the governance of the city.” It was referring to the power of transfer and posting of officials in the government that is vested with the L-G.
“We have achieved more than 70 per cent in almost every department and wherever we have not been able to achieve that potential, it is because we do not have the powers in the matters pertaining to land issues,” Sisodia said in his speech.
“Files are sent to him (Baijal) but he keeps on sleeping on them. When he wakes up, then he approves a few but then again goes into sleep,” Sisodia added.
“This circus has been going on since August 4, 2016, when the L-G’s office stated they are the sole in-charge of services. In the last 30 months, Delhi has seen four chief secretaries. The CM of Delhi comes to know of the CS appointment through media,” added the government statement.
The minister also attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government at the Centre saying: “These statistics that we are presenting are significant keeping in mind the atmosphere that the central government has created.”
“The Centre is busy hiding statistics, while we are transparent about whatever we have and have not been able to achieve,” he said hinting at the recent controversy about the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) report on unemployment which was allegedly junked by the Centre.
The Opposition, however, was quick to defend Baijal. Former minister Haroon Yusuf, who is the working president of the Delhi Congress said, “Blaming the L-G is just a face-saving exercise. The minister is making excuses. Land is available for 36 schools but no new school was built in the last four years. Sisodia talks about classrooms but there are no teachers.”
Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari said, “...Where are CCTV cameras, new schools, hospitals, marshalls in buses? The number of DTC buses has reduced. Pollution level in the national capital has reached a scary level. What have they done?” and questioned the need to blame Baijal.
