Delhi outcome budget

Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Friday presented the outcome budget for the year 2021-22, a report card of the government which measures how various departments have performed in the past year with the allocated funds under the last annual budget, and said majority of the work “was on track”

Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Friday presented the outcome budget for the year 2021-22, a report card of the government which measures how various departments have performed in the past year with the allocated funds under the last annual budget, and said majority of the work “was on track”.

New Delhi, Mar 25 (ANI): Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia discussing with core committee members before presenting the Outcome Budget 2021-22 during the Budget Session of Legislative Assembly, in New Delhi on Friday. (ANI Photo), (Sanjay Sharma)

In his speech, Sisodia said the Arvind Kejriwal government is the only government in the country that has been sharing its progress report and public expenditure with the citizens with complete transparency for the past five years through the outcome budget.

The annual budget for 2022-23 will be presented in the Delhi Assembly on Saturday at 11am.

“In the 75 years of the Independence, the Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government is the only state government which has been fixing its own accountability. The idea is to let people know where the proposals introduced in the previous year’s budget stand and how it is benefitting people of Delhi. Whether we were able to work on our promises or not. The Kejriwal government does not get stuck in files and rhetoric, it fulfils all its promises,” Sisodia said.

The AAP government began presenting the outcome budget, a day ahead of the annual budget, each year since 2017-18. It maps budget outlays to 1,036 ‘output and outcome indicators’. 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. For instance, if the government installs an X-ray machine at a hospital, it will the output, and the number of people who benefited from it will be the outcome.

“In the last budget, the Kejriwal government proposed building new classrooms in schools, and has developed 13,181 new rooms in Delhi government Schools till December 2021,” Sisodia said, and added that 43% of the 60 indicators assessed for the budget were on track.

There were a total of 104 indicators marked for programmes under the state directorate of education.

Only 44% indicators were on track in the department for welfare of SC/ST/OBC. In food and civil supplies department 64% indicators are on track, while only 45 indicators were on track in the urban development department and DUSIB.

Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said, “The Delhi government’s outcome budget is less about transparancy than about the lack of it. The government does not specify the targets in clear terms and does not share the achievements against individual targets.”

Debolina Kundu, professor at the National Institute of Urban Affairs, said the outcome budget is a unique initiative to periodically track and monitor the progress of the government schemes. It assesses in quantifiable terms the work done and areas where improvement is needed.