‘We care for people, don’t scare them’
The Delhi Assembly unanimously passed the Budget tabled by finance minister Manish Sisodia on Wednesday through voice vote.
The 48,000-crore Budget, of which 24 per cent has been allocated to the education sector, 12 per cent to the healthcare and 11 per cent to the transport sector, was passed without any amendments. In a huge relief to the people, the national capital’s first “outcome Budget” has not imposed any new taxes.
Earlier, participating in the discussion on the Delhi Budget, Mr Sisodia, who is also the deputy chief minister, said that the Budget will remove “fear” from the lives of people. “The governments are run by two methods — either by scaring the people or alleviating people’s fears. The Aam Aadmi Party is leading a government of which the people are not scared. The people are not scared of the income-tax raids, slum dwellers are not scared of their homes getting razed, the patients are not scared of lack of proper treatment and the common people are not scared of rise in power tariff or escalating water bills,” he said.
Taking a dig at the Opposition’s allegations, Mr Sisodia said that if they want to see the real outcome of the Budget, they should see the “change in the lives of the people”. “That is the real outcome,” he said. He also said that contrary to the claims of the Opposition, the Budget has provisions for the AAP government’s ambitious schemes, including the wi-fi project. Mr Sisodia attacked Leader of the Opposition in the Delhi Assembly Vijendar Gupta’s halfbaked knowledge to criticise the Budget tabled by him.
Earlier, health minister Satyendar Jain said that the AAP government has achieved works in the city in the last two years, which could be done in the last 70 years. He said that this year 4 crore people consulted the OPDs of the government hospitals compared to 3 crore last year.