The Delhi Cabinet on Thursday cleared a proposal to increase the annual MLA Local Area Development (MLALAD) fund from ₹10 crore to ₹15 crore to expedite projects ahead of Assembly poll, a move termed as “deception” by the BJP.
The proposal will now be sent to Lieutenant-Governor V.K. Saxena for his approval.
The move comes two days after Chief Minister Atishi Atishi held her first joint press conference with her predecessor and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal, who promised to resume all “stalled” projects before the election due in February next year.
Commenting on the increase in the legislators’ discretionary fund, Ms. Atishi said, “The MLALAD fund is a very important instrument in a democracy through which local residents can get small or large development works done through their legislators. No other State in the country has this much MLA fund.”
In a joint statement, Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva and the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, Vijendra Gupta, alleged that the fund is “likely to be misused” by the ruling party legislators by way of extracting “commissions” from contractors to be hired for development works.
The BJP leaders demanded a complete audit and supervision of all contracts sanctioned in next 100 days under the scheme.
Mr. Sachdeva also claimed that the Delhi’s government’s expenditure has overshot its revenue collection, leading to a situation where it may fail to pay salaries to its employees for the month of December.
The BJP leader also claimed that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government lacked liquidity to even fund ongoing projects as it introduced several public welfare plans without raising sufficient economic resources to meet the expenses.
“Today, Delhi requires ₹7,000 crore for power subsidies, under-construction hospitals, metro projects, court complexes, and increased salary expenses, but the Delhi government doesn’t have a single penny for these,” he added.
Mr. Sachdeva also alleged that Delhi’s 2024-25 budget presented earlier this year was the first deficit budget in years, breaking the chain of surplus budgets that started with the BJP’s rule under Chief Minister Madan Lal Khurana in 1994-95.
“Despite rising revenue, the main reason for the budget deficit is the implementation of public welfare schemes without raising sufficient economic resources and failing to make timely allocations for planned projects,” he said.
Published – October 11, 2024 01:30 am IST