Delhi Government Presents ‘Outcome Budget’; Education Among Top Performers
New Delhi March 9 dmanewsdesk: The Delhi government’s ‘Outcome Budget’ for 2020-21 was presented by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Monday, showing education, health, PWD and environment departments as top performers. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal asserted that his government was the first to give an account of its Budget to the people.
“The Delhi government presented its fourth outcome budget in a row. The first government in the country that gives account of its previous budget to the people,” Kejriwal tweeted. The year 2020-21 started in the shadow of COVID-19 pandemic and a strict lockdown that led to a shortfall of revenue which affected the progress and achievements of targets set in the Outcome Budget 2020-21, Sisodia said after presenting it in the Delhi Assembly. The Outcome Budget for 2020-21 covered 2,113 indicators of 595 schemes of major government departments.
The performance report of the Budget showed that 84 per cent of education indicators were ‘on track’, meaning over 75 per cent target had been achieved. Other top performing departments were health (80 per cent), environment (79 per cent), power( 75 per cent), PWD (73 per cent) among others. The Outcome Budget was introduced in 2017-18 by the AAP government as a tool linking the Budget with outcomes to capture the progress of various schemes, programmes and projects and final deliverables from the citizens’ perspective. “Presented 4th consecutive Status Report of Outcome Budget of Delhi govt – an exercise that began in 2017-18. Delhi is only state Govt in India that makes suo-moto disclosure across 2500+ indicators of its performance to promote transparency & accountability in public spending, “Sisodia tweeted.
The pandemic caused great disruption in government routine activities, revenue collection nosedived and resources were targeted to minimise the impact of COVID 19. This coupled with lockdown affected progress and achievements of targets set in Outcome Budget 2020-21, he said in the Assembly. The performance report of Delhi government presented an account of funds used and overall score of a department in terms of percentage of indicators up to December 31, 2020, for a critical set of output and outcome indicators. In case of Education department, 37 schemes were covered in the Budget.
Status of critical indicators highlighted that 35,275 economically weaker section (EWS) students were admitted in private schools under RTE Act. Government schools recorded 97.92 pass percentage in Class 12 results in 2019-20. The Budget covered 56 programmes of Health department consisting of 1,616 output indicators including 499 critical ones. Establishment of 496 Aam Aadmi Mohalla Clinics against the target of 750 were among the major indicators. Total 1.82 lakh children in 9-11 month age group were fully immunised against target of 2.96 lakh while 1.20 lakh institutional deliveries were assisted through ASHA workers.
The status of critical indicators of Transport department showed fleet utilisation of cluster buses increased while that of DTC buses declined. The bus operation in the city was shut from March 31 to May 18, 2020, during lockdown. The percentage of fleet utilisation of cluster buses increased to 98.58 per cent against targeted 97 per cent despite halted bus service up to December 2020 . Fleet utilisation of DTC decreased to 73.71 per cent against target of 90 per cent.
Status of other critical indicators included 47.78 lakh pollution under check certificates issued against target of 75 lakh, CCTV cameras installed in 5,200 DTC and cluster buses, construction of bus depots at Gummanhera and Mundela Kalan. The Environment department’s 19 programmes and 33 critical indicators were assessed in the Budget. Status of critical indicators showed fully functional 26 ambient quality monitoring stations and 771 beneficiaries given subsidy for battery operated four-wheelers.
Source: NDTV Education
