Delhi govt presents Rs 76k cr budget; proposes Rs 1000/month for women above 18 years

New Delhi: Keeping in view the ensuing general elections, the AAP-led Delhi government on Monday presented a Rs 76,000 crore budget for Delhi for 2024–25 while proposing Rs 1000 per month for women above the age of 18 years.

A new scheme, “Mukyamantri Mahila Samman Yojna,” is proposed for the welfare and empowerment of women from 2024–25. Under this scheme, every woman above the age of 18 years will be eligible to receive an amount of Rs 1000 per month, except those who are currently a part of any government pension scheme, are government employees, or are income tax payers, Delhi Finance Minister Ms. Atishi said while presenting her maiden budget in the Delhi Assembly.

For the financial year 2024–25, Rs 2000 crore is proposed for this scheme, she said.

Invoking the “Ram Rajya," the Delhi Finance Minister said that Delhi’s GDP has nearly tripled to Rs 11.08 crore from Rs 4.95 crore in 2014–15. Delhi’s per-capita income has improved to Rs 4.62 lakh in 2023–24 from Rs 2.47 lakh in 2014–15, surpassing the national average by two and a half times.

The budget estimates for 2024–25 of Rs 76,000 crore are 1.47 percent higher than the revised estimates of Rs 74,900 crore for the year 2023–24, according to the budget documents of the Delhi government presented today.

The budget of Rs 76,000 crore during the years 2024–25 is proposed to be mainly financed from our own resources. The major components are Rs 58,750 crore from own tax revenue, Rs 1,000 crore from non-tax revenue, Rs 10,000 crore from small saving loans, Rs 379 crore of capital receipts, Rs 3223.94 crore from the Centrally Sponsored Scheme, Rs 1168 crore as normal central assistance and other central grants from the Government of India, and Rs 1478.95 crore from the opening balance.

Continuing its focus on the education sector, the Arvind Kejriwal government has allocated Rs 16,396 crore, nearly 22 percent of the total budget for the years 2024–25, for the education sector. Atishi said that until 2014–15, the government schools in Delhi had only 24,000 rooms available for the education of children. In the last nine years, the government has built 22,711 new classrooms.

Before 2015, Delhi government schools had 34,182 regular teachers. Now, there are 47,914 regular teachers in Delhi government schools, and the recruitment process for approximately 7,000 more is underway, she said.