Senior Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and Leader of the Opposition Atishi on Friday said that the ₹1-lakh-crore Delhi budget was nothing but a classic case of ‘jumla (empty rhetoric)’ as there was no clarity over the source of the money the newly formed Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government plans to spend.
“Delhi’s actual revenue will be ₹78,000 crore, not ₹1-lakh-crore, and Chief Minster Rekha Gupta has misled the people of Delhi,” Ms. Atishi said while addressing a press conference.
However, Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva stated that ever since AAP lost the Delhi Assembly election, it is continuously “misleading the people” by making “false statements” on the same issue every day.
Ms. Atishi reiterated that the BJP broke an established parliamentary procedure by not tabling the economic survey a day before the budget.
“The economic survey would have shown the city’s tax revenue for the upcoming financial year around ₹63,000 crore. This means it’s ₹5,000 crore lower than the BJP’s estimate,” said Ms. Atishi said.
The former Chief Minister, who also held the finance portfolio in the previous government, said that other heads that the government claims to receive revenue from, are false.
“The Delhi government’s budget document claims that the Centre will provide ₹1,000 crore under the Central Road Infrastructure Fund and ₹6,000 crore for capital projects. If the BJP government was truly giving this money, it should be reflected in the Union Budget. The Centre has consistently refused to provide funds to the Delhi government, allocating just ₹950 crore in the past two years, and even that was not actually disbursed,” she explained.
“This reduces the revenue by a further ₹7,000 crore,” said Ms. Atishi.
The LoP said that the budget also falsely claims that a ₹15,000 crore loan will be taken against small savings. She said that unlike other States, the Delhi government cannot borrow from banks or the market and can only take loans from the National Small Savings Fund (NSSF). “As per the NSSF rules, Delhi can borrow either 100% or 50% of the small savings deposited by its residents in post offices, PPF, and small savings scheme,” she said.
“Delhiites once had nearly ₹10,000 crore in small savings, allowing the government to borrow up to ₹10,000 crore,” she asserted.
Referring to figures presented in Rajya Sabha by Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary, she said, “Small savings deposits in Delhi have now dwindled to just ₹5,000 crore. This means the Delhi government cannot take a ₹15,000 crore loan as claimed in the budget. The maximum it can borrow is ₹5,000 crore. This reduces the budget by another ₹10,000 crores,” she added.
‘No audit’
Mr Sachdeva stated that Ms Gupta could not present the economic survey, not due to negligence by the Delhi government but the previous AAP government’s “failure to conduct departmental audits” to hide its “corruption”.
The Delhi BJP president said that the women of the city “trust the BJP leadership” regarding the Mahila Samriddhi Yojana or the women aid scheme and free LPG cylinder. “They (women) are aware that, following due process, these benefits will begin reaching them within the financial year 2025-26,” he claimed.
Published – March 29, 2025 12:04 am IST
