Education and health perform best, PWD and transport worst

NEW DELHI: The Delhi government’s Outcome Budget 2019-20 — a report card on government’s various schemes and departments—released Monday showed the public works department (PWD), and transport and urban development departments are the worst performing arms with under 70% project progress.

As per the outcome budget, the best performing sectors are education, health, social welfare, and women and child welfare departments with above-70% “on track” project parameters. The departments with average performance are power, environment and forest and the Delhi Jal Board.

The outcome budget covered 567 schemes and projects across eight departments, where 1,549 outcome indicators were used to determine progress.

However, government officials said the number of projects and proposals in PWD, transport and urban development departments was higher as compared to other departments which is why the number of “off track” parameters are also higher.

“A number of construction projects are pending. Some of them —such as Barapullah-3 elevated corridor, Ashram underpass, Benito Juarez Marg underpass —are months behind schedule. The government should complete these projects on priority as they are of great importance to the city,” S Velmurugan, senior principal scientist (traffic engineering and safety), Central Road Research Institute said.

The outcome budget shows , public transport in Delhi is grossly inadequate —there are around 6,200 buses against a required fleet strength of 11,000.

“There were many hurdles in the procurement of buses, which kept delaying the entire process. But over 500 new standard-floor buses were added to the fleet till December 2019. More progress will be seen in coming months,” a senior transport department official, requesting anonymity, said.