67% education department projects are on track, says Delhi’s outcome budget

The AAP government began presenting the outcome budget, a day ahead of the annual budget, each year since 2017-18

NEW DELHI: Nearly 68% of projects of the city government’s public works department (PWD) are on track as compared to 67% of projects of the education department and 54% of projects of the health department, according to the outcome budget presented by Delhi finance minister Kailash Gahlot in Delhi assembly on Monday.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, and Delhi finance minister Kailash Gahlot during the first day of the Budget Session of Delhi Vidhansabha Assembly in New Delhi, India, on March 17 (HT Photo/Raj K Raj)

The Arvind Kejriwal government in Delhi is the only state or union territory in the country to make suo motu disclosure across 1,136 indicators of its performance, Gahlot told the assembly on the government’s report card which measures how various departments have performed in the past year with the allocated funds under the last annual budget.

It maps the budget outlays to 1,036 ‘output and outcome indicators’ up to December 31, 2022. . The output indicates the launching of a scheme and the budget for that particular work and the outcome refers to the benefits that people get from that scheme.

“Outcome budget is a unique system to track the status of the budget promises… It effectively monitors the progress of the schemes regularly. Dialogue and Development Commission of Delhi has created a dashboard for real-time monitoring of the projects under outcome budget,” added Gahlot, who took charge of the Delhi finance ministry on March 2 following the resignation of Manish Sisodia in view of his arrest last month by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the Delhi excise policy case.

Nearly 67% projects of the education department, 73% projects of the environment department, 54% projects of the health department, 69% projects of the transport department, 66% projects of Delhi Jal Board, 71% of projects of the women and child development department, and 77% projects are on track in the administrative reforms department, according to the document seen by HT.

On the environment department performance, the minister said: “100% of industries in Delhi are equipped with Continuous Emission Monitoring System (CEMS), 1.8 million saplings have been planted in the forest area, 75% of complaints were resolved within the prescribed time period under Green Delhi App for violation of anti-pollution norms, and modern lab for real-time identification of different causes of pollution has been established in collaboration with IIT Kanpur, IIT Delhi and TERI,” the minister said.