CM’s budget boost to social sector, transport
Chief minister Sheila Dikshit presents the annual budget in Delhi Assembly on Tuesday.
Chief minister Sheila Dikshit presenting her maiden `27,067 crore budget in the Delhi Assembly on Tuesday, laid special emphasis on the social sector apart from giving high priority to transport. Conforming to expectations, the chief minister announced various sops and populist measures.
However, as a result of the government’s bid to shore up revenue, all kinds of diesel-run vehicles will be costlier and so will be sweetmeats and namkeen, while bicycles, kerosene stoves, lantern and sanitary napkins would be cheaper.
Ms Dikshit has proposed to impose an additional tax of 25 per cent of existing tax rates on diesel-propelled vehicles specified in the schedule-I of the Motor Vehicle Taxation Act 2004 in a bid to discourage people from buying “polluting” vehicles.
She also proposed to hike Value Added Tax (VAT) on sweetmeats and namkeen from 5 per cent to 12.5 per cent. In a bid to discourage people from consuming tobacco and bidi, Ms Dikshit has proposed to levy 12.5 per cent VAT on the items besides on tobacco used in bidis and hooka.
In an attempt to encourage the use of environment-friendly transport, the chief minister has proposed to exempt bicycles costing upto `3,500 from tax.
The CM also announced exempting kerosene stoves, lanterns and petromax lamps and their spare parts from VAT. Khandsari sugar and textiles and sanitary napkins costing upto `20 have also been exempted from VAT. Cooked food, commonly known as Jan Ahar, costing `15 per thali also benefit from VAT exemption.
The `27,067 crores Delhi budget is divided into plan budget of `13,600 crores, a jump of about 19 per cent over last year, and non-plan budget of `13,307 crores. The budget would be funded by `20,246 crore tax collections, which include `14,500 crores through VAT alone.
The transport sector continues to account for the maximum plan allocation of `3,348 crores (25 per cent), followed by urban development and housing with allocation of `1,924 crores (14 per cent).
The chief minister has also proposed an allocation of `698 crores for development work in unauthorised colonies during 2011-12. She has allocated `1,071 crores for the third phase of Metro in 2011-12 .
Ms Dikshit announced that a total of 27 lakh school-going children would be covered under “Universal Free Health Scheme” for which a corpus of `100 crores has been set up.
The government would also take up construction of 30 new school buildings with an outlay of `270 crores and proposes to further expand scholarships to students from the economically and socially weaker sections of society.
The MLAs too got something to cheer about as they would now get an additional `50 lakhs under the MLA Local Area Development Fund as the CM raised it to `2.5 crores in the budget.
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