The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government, on Tuesday, presented a vote-on-account in the Delhi Assembly for the next three months and announced plan to spend a total of Rs. 37,750 crore in 2015-16.
Presenting the vote-on-account, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said the government will come out with a full budget in a month after holding consultations with the people to identify priorities for various sectors.
Mr. Sisodia said government has planned to allocate Rs. 21,500 crore for non-plan expenditure while the plan outlay will be around Rs. 16,250 crore.
The proposed non-plan expenditure is around Rs. 3,000 crore more than last year’s allocation while plan outlay would be Rs. 100 crore less than last year’s outlay.
“Government is bringing vote-on-account because this new government wants people’s suggestions to prepare its Budget. Till now, Budget would be prepared in a closed room, but we will not follow this. Instead we will go among the people and seek their suggestions to prepare the Budget of this government,” Mr. Sisodia said.
The Deputy Chief Minister also put a proposal to amend Value Added Tax (VAT) Act which was passed by the majority in the House. The amendment will allow traders to carry forward their credit for the successive financial years.
While presenting the Budget, Mr. Sisodia said in 2014-15, the government suffered a deficit of Rs. 4,500 crore since AAP ministry quit in February last year.
“14th Finance Commission had recommended the increase in Center’s fund allocation to Delhi. We only demand that Centre should give us 0.65 per cent of total service tax which it gets from Delhi. With this, Delhi will get Rs. 4,000 crore,” the Deputy CM said.
